


An Experiment's Adventures

by Adrastos



Series: An Experiment in the Federation [2]
Category: Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gratuitous Attic Greek, Politics, Sequel, Space Battles, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22768240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrastos/pseuds/Adrastos
Summary: 626 thought that carving a nice out for himself in the Federation and facing his creator were the hard parts, and that with that out of the way he was all set to keep doing good across the galaxy.But that was before order across the galaxy began to fracture. And the political winds in the galaxy began to shift. And more illegal genetic experiments like him and Leroy began cropping up everywhere.It's a lot for one experiment to deal with, but if there's one thing 626 is good at it's dealing with unexpected things.
Series: An Experiment in the Federation [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636948
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	1. Vacation's End

- _Birds of Paradise Hotel, 15:00 Hawai’i – Aleutian Standard Time_ -

626 never failed to be surprised by how comfortable the couches in the Birds of Paradise Hotel’s lobby were – surely, couches decked with cheap palm tree pictures or nonsensical bits of geometry had no right to be so pleasurably firm, did they?

Regardless, for the past month they’d made nice enough seating that he almost didn’t mind the fact that he needed to spend a good two hours every day sitting on one and watching Lilo and Leroy as they puttered around the hotel’s lobby doing whatever caught their fancy.

 _Almost_ being the key word, as not even the most surprisingly-comfortable couch in the galaxy could change the fact that these two hours of stakeout inevitably ended up as nothing more than 626 sitting around and twiddling his fingers while Lilo and Leroy doodled a bunch of pictures or listened to some Elvis or ate some fruit, with the most interesting thing that ever happened being the one time when Leroy bestowed a bouquet of flowers on a random old lady after Lilo decided that she ‘needed some lovin’.

During his 25 days in the maximum security cell aboard the _Durgon,_ 626 had learned early on that he was the sort of person that absolutely _needed_ some sort of thing to do or listen to if he was going to sit still for long periods of time, lest the boredom drive him insane, and so when after a mere four days the boredom had reached critical mass he decided to do something about it by learning how to play the Earth instrument called a ukulele, having developed a taste for the way it sounded during his brief time masquerading as Lilo’s ‘dog’, and so he had spent most of his afternoons the past month twanging away and gradually learning how to play the various songs he heard over the hotel’s speakers.

And every single song Elvis ever wrote, thanks to Lilo.

(626 had decided a week into his ukulele practice that once this assignment was over if he ever heard _Hound Dog_ or _Jailhouse Rock_ again that he would hurl the offending loudspeaker out the nearest window)

And so it was that on the second-to-last day of the assignment watching Leroy that 626 found himself sitting in the usual place, strumming the usual warm-up notes on his instrument, watching Leroy and Lilo take part in the usual games.

Some radio station called ‘classic eighties rock’ played out from the loudspeakers.

_If I go, there will be trouble,_

_If I stay, there will be double,_

_So come on and let me know…_

It was a catchy song, and before he knew it 626 found himself playing along with the lyrics, so enraptured that he didn’t notice he had company until someone suddenly plopped right down on the couch next to him.

“Now _that’s_ a bit ironic, isn’t it?” Melia flicked her eyes up at the speakers. “They decided to play a song about leaving right before we do just that?”

626 jumped and nearly dropped his ukulele. “Melia! When’d you get here?”

“Just a moment ago.” 626 noticed that she had a pair of snow cones with her, one of which she held out. “Want one? They’re grape flavored.”

626 took one and licked it, resisting the urge to down the entire thing in a single gulp. As he had learned many times over, that was the way of brain-freeze and pain. “Thanks. Where’d you get these?”

“Kiki’s. I mentioned while we were setting up the tables that we’re heading back to the Federation soon, so she gave me them as thanks.” Melia sighed. “I’m going to miss her, you know. This whole island, actually.”

“Yeah. I know the feeling.” As boring as Leroy-watching duty may have been, the past month on Kaua’i had been the most relaxing 626 had enjoyed in some time: no war against gangsters, no secret Federation science projects, just endless days by the beach surfing or playing music and getting to know everyone better.

626 gazed up at the sky. “I hope things out there are still as peaceful as they are down here.”

- _Galactic Federation Headquarters_ , _Planet Turo,_ _8:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

Under normal circumstances, the headquarters of the United Galactic Federation were under strict guard from top-to-bottom, with white-uniformed soldiers wielding electrostaffs and plasma guns to be found on almost every quarter.

Today, however, was not ‘normal circumstances’. Today was Founders’ Day, one of those rare holidays in which everything in the Federation government closed up shop and let almost everyone have the day off.

As such, when a quartet of autonomous drones flitted down towards the basement there was no one there to stop them.

The drones buzzed downwards, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the building, ignoring everything of the sort that the average criminal would give their lives for – government secrets that would allow the blackmail of almost everyone in the Federation were passed by as though they were the least interesting thing in the galaxy, and not even cachets of military deployment raised so much as a peep from either the drones or the one watching them.

No, their goal was farther down, in The Vault.

The Vault was heavily secured, of course, with doors six-feet thick and made out of solid steel, openable only by entering the correct fifty-digit password. As the passcode was rigged to set off alarms and seal the antechamber the moment someone entered an incorrect password, and the walls were secure enough that the only way to blast them open would be to use enough force to simultaneously level a good thousand square-miles of surrounding area, The Vault was widely considered the toughest nut to crack on the planet.

A pity – for the Federation, at least – that the operator of the drones knew exactly how to crack said nut. All he had to do was program the lead drone to get into the safe computer’s code. Not to try and change the setting from ‘closed’ to ‘open’ as a criminal of lesser intelligence might try (the Federation had already planned for that, he was sure of it), but to take advantage of the fact that the mighty security interface of The Vault simply boiled down to a bunch of ‘if x integer is inputted do y’ checks. All the drones had to do was figure out what was the one integer ‘x’ couldn’t be in each case.

Less than a minute after starting, the lock to The Vault agreeably beeped open and the drones were able to enter.

They split up in order to cover the most ground as fast as possible, and after three minutes of searching one of the drones uncovered their target:

The computer containing all that the Federation had been able to salvage from Jumba Jookiba’s lab regarding the genetic information of his two creations.

The drone’s operator smiled. It wasn’t much, true, but it was more than enough for someone like him.

 _Alright_ , he thought as the drones scanned the computer and copied its data, _time to prove that it is I, and not Jumba, who is the TRUE evil genius in the galaxy_.

***

- _Birds of Paradise Hotel, 17:00 Hawai’i – Aleutian Standard Time_ -

Their last couple days on Kaua’i passed uneventfully. When Nani emerged from her job and fetched Lilo and Leroy, 626 got up from the couch for the last time, patted it goodbye, and walked over to join them.

“So today’s really the end, huh?” Lilo asked. “Mr. Bubbles said you all have to go back to space again tomorrow.”

“Frankly, I’m surprised you all had to stay here this long anyways.” Nani shook her head.

“Hey, I’m not complaining.” 626 held up his ukulele. “Let me learn how to play this, didn’t it?”

“Yuuga stay for meega, right?” Leory’s ears had drooped. “Meega soka.” _I’m sorry_.

“Like I said: not complaining in the slightest.”

“I still don’t get it, though. Leroy’s good now, so why don’t they just let him be?”

“They’re just scared of what they don’t know, Lilo.” Nani snorted. “I guess aliens aren’t any different than people in that, are they?” Nani looked off into the distance. “Especially lately…” She muttered under her breath.

All three of the others looked at her for an explanation, but when one was not forthcoming they all started out of the hotel’s lobby.

They were some ways down the streets that 626 took towards what Obrea still insisted was their ‘base’ before the experiment realized that the other three were still following him.

He stopped and looked at them. “Not that I’m in a rush to get rid of you guys, but isn’t your home over _there_?” He pointed off into the distance.

Nani smiled. “We’re not going to _our_ place, you lolo!” 626 tilted his head, which Nani chuckle. “Not telling why. You’ll find out soon enough.” And then she strode off.

“You guys are throwing us a party, aren’t you.”

Lilo’s face wanted desperately to be a mask, but asking her to conceal her grin would be like asking Nani to not fret over her sister fifteen times a day. “It’s a secret.”

When they got back to the base it was all lit up, which judging by Nani’s sudden stop and subsequent whispered swear was something that was not supposed to be the case. She dashed up the steps as the other three followed, and as she opened the door 626 realized he could hear the faint sounds of that ‘Thousand Miles’ song that had been all over the radio the entire month.

They entered the living room to find that the party was already well-underway: on the table sat a massive coconut cake – judging by the heavenly aroma 626 could already feel wafting towards him – surrounded by multiple gallon-sized bottles of Earth soda, one of which was grabbed by Nani’s boyfriend David as he poured out a cup for her. Agent Bubbles sat straight up on the sofa while talking to a much more relaxed Obrea as the latter reclined back on a sofa cushion, and over in the corner of the room Melia and Spon watched some news channel talking about the launch of an artificial satellite into orbit.

“It’s cute that they think this is a big deal.” Spon opined as he sipped his cup of soda.

“Nani! 626!” David walked over, grinning, the extra cup of soda in his hand. “I was beginning to wonder if you weren’t gonna make it.” He held out the cup. “Some Coke, Nani?”

Nani took the soda and drank a bit. “David, I thought this was supposed to be a _surprise_ party, remember?”

Sheepishly, David ran a hand over the back of his head. “Well, yeah, but you ever tried to throw a surprise party for people still in the house?”

“And it didn’t occur to you to try and shoo them out for a bit?”

“One of us has to be on-site at all times, Miss Pelekai.” Adon had entered the room a moment ago after grabbing herself a beer. “Security regulations.” She smiled. “It was a nice thought, though.”

Nani sighed. “Well, now that we’re all here – I think – I suppose it can’t be helped. We are all here, right?” She looked around. “Wait – where’s Ritska?”

Obrea nodded upstairs. “Working upstairs, I bet. They ran in around lunchtime with a couple of sample tubes and shouted something about the need to get more data.”

“Should we wait for her – I mean for them?”

“Probably not, or we’ll be waiting all night.”

“Which would be absolutely terrible.” 626 added as he carved himself a massive slice of cake.

- _The Base, 21:00 Hawai’i – Aleutian Standard Time_ -

Things had finally begun to die down, and as they did 626 found himself wandering out to the porch to take one last look out at the waters around their home of the past month. The night air was pleasantly cool, especially with the soft breeze working out from the ocean, and with the moon still almost full the beachfront was lit up in a soft, beautiful glow. He sighed; no matter how much he missed being out there among the stars, no matter how boring stakeout duty might have gotten sometimes, the prospect of leaving tomorrow was bittersweet.

Obrea and Adon must have been feeling similarly wistful, because as 626 watched the waves break against the shore he noticed the two of them strolling together on the beach and heading away from the base.

626 watched them walk for a bit before he heard the door creak open behind him, and turned to see Melia coming out to join in.

She was rather flustered, oddly. “ _Please_ tell me you’re still sober.” When 626 nodded she exhaled in relief. “Oh, thank the goddess. Fun fact, in case you didn’t know: A drunk Spon is a loud Spon. So is a drunk Cobra.”

“Agent _Bubbles_? Really? Never would’ve guessed.”

“Uh huh. So please tell me you’re being nice and quiet.”

“Well, I was.”

“Good.” Melia leaned forwards, plopped down in a deck chair. “Please stay that way.”

“I’ll try.”

The two were silent for a time. _You know,_ 626 mused, _Melia really looks pretty in the moonlight_. He thought about saying that, but decided not to. _What if that made things awkward?_

Instead, he decided to just enjoy the moment out there, listening to the waves, not even really noticing when she got up and stood next to him. “This really is a beautiful planet, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it really is.”

The next day, at noon, after their final goodbyes they left Hawai’i and Earth behind. Their vacation was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I didn't plan on starting a sequel for quite a bit longer, but my writing fingers were itching, so here we go. Let's hope it's another good one.


	2. Sparks

- _Planet Turo_ , _8:45 Turo Standard Time_ -

626 had been one of the copilots on the flight back to Turo, and as such he was the first person to notice that their arrival in front of the Federation’s headquarters was an arrival that saw the majority of their landing space taken up by a mass of angry protesters carrying signs and making enough noise that he could hear it even over the roar of the engines.

Above the throng, hologram-projectors displayed a picture of the Grand Councilwoman with a massive X across her face. On both sides, other hologram-projectors instead showed what 626 surmised were the aims of the demonstrators:

CHANGE NOW!

NO MORE CHAOS!

FUND THE BOYS AND GIRLS IN WHITE, NOT PLEASURE CRUISERS!

REMEMBER THE _DURGON!_

As the incoming ship maneuvered to try and find a safe place to land the attention of the protestors gradually drifted from the Federation headquarters towards it. A small number of protestors fled, assuming that the new arrival had been ordered to affect their dispersal, but the greater number stood and started chanting again and shaking a variety of appendages up into the air.

626 looked over at the pilot. “Change of plans, I take it?”

The pilot merely grunted before shifting the ship’s stick upwards. They pulled up and began to circle around the back, towards the secondary landing platform.

“Okay, _what in space is going on down there_?” Adon stormed into the cabin just before they landed. “How long has this been going on for?”

The pilot never looked away from the task at hand, but 626 noticed her suppress a sigh. “Two weeks? A little more? Ever since the full details of what happened on Gapra and Saiccano broke they’ve been out their daily.”

“That would’ve been nice to know.”

The pilot threw up her paws momentarily. “Hey, I just fly this ship where I’m told. Keeping everyone in the Armada up to speed on politics isn’t my job.”

Adon and 626 looked at each other, the former taking a deep breath before exhaling.

“Have they all been peaceful?” 626 asked.

“So far. Thankfully the new captain’s smart enough to know that’s a good idea.”

The ship landed on the pad with a _bump_. 626 unbuckled from his seat before standing and stretching, and went back to meet up with everyone.

***

The Grand Councilwoman looked disturbingly thin, which, considering how lean her species was by nature, 626 thought was quite the achievement. When they all came in she was busy talking to someone via holoconference, only stopping when she saw the six of them gathered.

“Right, my apologies to you, Councilor Halpern. I have a prior obligation I must fulfil. No, I won’t be long – I’m just getting a report and bringing the people from Earth up to speed on what’s being going on here.”

She turned the hologram-projector off, took a moment to compose herself, and turned to face the new arrivals after forcing a smile on to her face.

“Bad time, milady?” Ritska ventured.

“Not at all. Just the normal pressures of governance.”

“Does it normally involve not getting any sleep? Because by the looks of those bags you’ve got under your eyes you haven’t slept in a _while_. No offense, milady.” Spon quickly added.

“None taken, Mr. Jofford. In truth I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep since I got this position, but I will admit that lately I’m lucky to get more than an hour per night.” She waved a hand at the window, towards the protestors still gathered at the base of the building. “As you can see, there’s been a great deal of noise lately both from the populace and from within the Council itself.

“Over…” Obrea looked questioning at the Grand Councilwoman.

“Over what many see as my weakness. According to them, I’ve let the security of the Federation suffer in favor of lining my pockets and those of my allies.” The Councilwoman’s hands made a fist on her desk. “They’ve started saying it’s all _my_ fault Captain Gantu is dead, that I didn’t do enough to ensure his safety, even that I _wanted_ him to die so that I could place one of my so-called ‘cronies’ in charge of the military.”

“Which is all lies, of course.”

“No,” Adon added quietly, “not all of it.”

“Claire-!”

“ _Think_ , Ellar!” She turned to the Councilwoman. “I’m not implying that you’re padding out your own wallet, nor would I have the sheer _audacity_ to suggest that you set Gantu up to die, but the bit about the galaxy being less secure? Can you honestly say that’s a lie after everything that’s happened in the past year?”

“I – I cannot.”

“Hang on a moment, Adon. Isn’t that just an isolated event?” Obrea shook his head. “And besides, we took care of all the people responsible.”

“It’s not just that one thing, though.” 626 pointed at himself. “I mean, don’t forget – Jumba was able to make me completely under the Federation’s nose, and that was three years ago.”

“Well, yes, but again I think we nipped that in the bud when we got rid of Jumba. All the data he and Dr. Hämsterviel used to make you is either gone or secured down in The Vault, right?”

At that the Grand Councilwoman, who had been taking the opportunity to drink a sip of water, promptly began to choke on in. “Ah, yes, well…the thing – the thing is…” She managed to sputter out.

They all stared at her.

“Someone broke in.” It wasn’t a question.

“Unfortunately, 626, they did. Yesterday someone managed to penetrate our security and steal all the genetic data we managed to salvage from Jumba and Hämsterviel’s computers.”

“And you guys didn’t notice?” Spon’s jaw had dropped to the floor. “Are you _serious_?”

“Security was…lax…because of Founder’s Day.”

“So naturally you left The Vault unguarded.” Spon turned and started walking away. “Right, if you all don’t mind, I’m going to step out for a moment and take a couple of deep breaths.”

They all watched him go. “How much genetic data was there to be stolen?” Melia asked.

“Ten to fifteen percent of the completed genome, by estimation.”

“Oh, then, that’s not as bad as it could’ve been. Though I suppose it depends on which parts of 626’s genome the bits stolen represent.”

Melia blinked. “Come again, Ritska?”

They shrugged. “Well, when you get down to it, all living things in the galaxy have a similar genetic structure. On Earth, for example, humans share 70 percent of their DNA with these little spiky-ball things that live in the ocean called sea-urchins. Even though the latter are literally just little balls of flesh surrounded by a bunch of points. So odds are that they stole a bunch of genes that just control 626’s fur texture or something.”

“Unless they lucked on the ones that deal with all my important stuff,” 626 rolled his eyes, “like, you know, the whole ‘lift 3,000 times my size’ thing or the ‘think faster than a supercomputer’ thing?”

“Well, yes, in theory, but it’s more likely that what they were able to recover is harmless. Simple probability.”

Obrea chuckled, but it was a rather mirthless chuckle. “Since when have things _ever_ worked like that around any of us?”

“Well, if we wanted to make sure, I suppose we could try and sequence 626’s genome and compare what we find to the bits stored in The Vault…”

“That is out of the question.” The Councilwoman stood up. “Forgive me for saying this, 626, but we cannot allow any more of your genetic information to float around on a computer somewhere waiting to get stolen. Particularly in light of that last breach.”

Adon cleared her throat before 626 could respond. “Shouldn’t we get around to discussing the reason we all _actually_ came here?”

The Councilwoman looked at her, sighed, and sat back down. “Yes, of course. Sorry, I just thought that this matter needed to be addressed as soon as possible. But I digressed, I suppose. How is Leroy?”

626 pulled out a data pad containing all his notes from the endless hours spent sitting on the couch. “He’s doing pretty good. Got up to absolutely no mischief after the second night unless he and Lilo were doing something that wound up going completely wrong. Which happened like four times a week, granted.”

She took the data pad and plugged it into her computer. “What about the first two days?”

Melia shrugged. “Still nothing much. According to Lilo he just tore some drawings she’d made and pretended he was a monster smashing up a city he made out of books and stuff.”

“I see. And are you certain that’s not a harbinger of his intended programming acting up?”

Obrea smiled. “No, I’m fairly sure that’s just normal ‘kid stuff’. When I was young I had this zoo simulator where I used to feed the guests to the wild animals for the fun of it, and I’m not exactly a mass-murderer.”

They were dismissed soon after that, and the five of them left to find Spon standing outside in the entrance hall.

“So how bad was the damage?” All four of his arms were crossed, 626 noticed. “Tell me they weren’t able to make off with the entire DNA ladder.”

“Somewhere between a tenth and a fifth of it. Which could mean anything, but probably means that they got little of value.”

“That’s good, at least.” Spon turned and stomped off, muttering. “Honestly, they couldn’t even keep the friggin’ vault safe, could they…”

626 watched his friend for a moment before turning to the window. The mass of protesters was still down in the plaza, and he leaned out to get a look at the extent, placing all six of his paws against the glass as an anchor.

As he pulled away the experiment couldn’t help but notice that all of his paws had left marks on the glass.

_We cannot allow any more of your genetic information to float around_ …

Hmm.

626 frowned; surely, you couldn’t get DNA from a pawprint, right? Just the outline of his paw? The outline his fur made?

_Oh. My fur. Shit. That stuff’s probably in a thousand places._

He rushed off after the realization, suddenly needing to ask Ritska how long DNA taken from a hair was viable for.

***

- _Unknown location, 21:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

_Yes. Finally._ It had been a long process, but, finally, he was ready.

His creation.

Months had passed since he’d seen Experiment 626 in action back when they were both stationed on Gapra, and since then he’d been unable to get the experiment out of his head. The power! The intelligence! The sheer ability of a life-form completely artificially constructed, like a robot yet flesh-and-blood! Yufu had been spellbound and had immediately embarked on his own program of creation.

626 had been injured after the battle, so Yufu had taken a couple of drops and taken advantage of the post-battle confusion to slip away. After that he had immediately gotten to work.

Now, finally, months and months and _months_ later, he was ready. He’d chosen the abilities. He’d created the body. He’d even melded the personality.

All that was left was to flip the switch.

The machine crackled to life as lightning surged inwards, bathing the materials he was using to construct his creation in a bright, hot light. The materials surged and crackled as they began to bind to one another.

Slowly, atom by atom, his creation came together.

It sat in the bottom of its container once the process ended, covered in bright yellow fur.

For a few heartbeats it was still, just long enough that Yufu began to fear that something had gone wrong, that his process had failed.

Then it stirred. Slowly at first, uncurling itself, then standing on both paws, then gazing out at Yufu.

He waved at it. It smiled, and then waved back.

The smile grew bigger and bigger.

It cackled suddenly, each cackle punctuating a great burst of lightning, this time coming _from_ the experiment as opposed to coming _to_ it. Excited at finding itself alive the experiment leapt around its container as though it was an electric current itself, lightning sparkling from its’ antennae all the while.

Yufu grinned as well, proud of himself.

“Welcome to the galaxy, my experiment. Your name is…” He paused for a moment; what was a good number?

He decided on the emergency code for lightning storms on his home planet, the type of storm that had driven his people underground for centuries.

“Your name is Experiment 221.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who ever played Zoo Tycoon as a kid knows EXACTLY what Obrea's talking about. Personally, my favorite method was to enclose the entire zoo in electric fencing and unleash like six T-Rexes on the unsuspecting guests.   
> On a more relevant note, sorry that this chapter's so talky: next few should give everyone more to do, hopefully.


	3. 221

- _Unknown Location, 10:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

221 buzzed around his glass container impatiently. Three days had passed since his creation – at least according to his creator, as 221 felt as though there was no way the seeming eternity he’d spent cooped up had been that short – and two and a half since his molecules had finished charging, yet he still hadn’t been let out of it. Not _once_ , not even for a moment, which as far as 221 was concerned was a crime. There was an entire galaxy to see! Systems to play around in! People to mess with! There was _so much he wanted to do…_

The very thought of getting out filled 221 with so much energy that he had to do another hundred laps around the container’s interior just to get it all out. Not that it took very long. _Still helps, though_.

Just then, the room’s door whirred open as Yufu shambled in, suppressing a yawn. “Mo-morning, 221.” He walked over to the computer and got it starting to boot up. “Let me just go get breakfast, and then we can start for today.”

221 hoped that his creator wouldn’t take _too_ long. Every minute he had to wait was another minute his desire to leave got stronger and stronger.

Fortunately, 15 minutes later Yufu came back and examined the computer’s display. Smiling, he turned to his creation. “I’ve got great news for you!”

“Aba Tooky?” _What’s up?_

Not for the first time, Yufu marveled internally at how easily his creation was able to speak one language yet perfectly understand a completely different one. _How brilliant!_ “I’m glad you asked!” Striding over he began to key in a code on the panel below 221’s container. “Today it’s finally, _finally_ time to set you free!”

221 clapped his paws. “Chibba!” _Yeah!_ Waiting for the container to open he launched into another excited set of laps around the glass, and the moment that the seam at the top opened he rushed out in current-form and danced in and out of the room’s wiring, whooping all the while.

Yufu laughed. “Slow down a minute, will you? You’ll short something out!”

221 immediately stopped and shot back down to the ground. “Soka. Meega got excited.” The last two words made Yufu gasp, and 221 frowned. “Gaba smick?” _What’s wrong_?”

“You…you spoke basic! All on your own! And formed a coherent, bilingual sentence!” Pumping his hands in the air the scientist turned back to the computer and began furiously typing in some data. “This is incredible! It’s unprecedented in the history of our galaxy! Not even Experiment 626 was able to pick up Basic without post-creation modifications!”

“Experiment 626? Gaba geik?” _Who’s that?_ ”

Yufu paused typing. “The first flesh-and-blood person created completely artificially. Like you.

“Others like meega?”

“Yep. Two: 626, and a second his creator made named Leroy. That’s it. There’s only three creations like you in the galaxy.” The scientist smiled with pride. “And, as a matter of fact, only _one_ with the ability to change between corporeal and incorporeal states.”

“Meega?”

“Precisely! Now, about what I wanted to do today – how does testing out your powers sound?”

“Ih! Ih!” _Yes! Yes!_

***

- _Galactic Armada Headquarters, Residential Section, 13:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

626 was returning from lunch when he was waylaid by a grim-faced, insectoid officer clutching a notepad against his Thorax. “Airman First Class Experiment 626?”

“Y-yes?” 626 noticed that the officer had the uniform of a First Sergeant and immediately stood at attention before saluting. “Yes, sir. Is something the matter?”

“Perhaps.” He turned and began walking down the hallway. “Come with me.”

626 followed close behind as the First Sergeant led him across the base. All the while his curiosity grew, along with the irritating sense that quite literally the _day_ after he was done debriefing the higher-ups on the Leroy situation, he was about to be given some important assignment.

His suspicions turned into certainty when he was brought into a secluded room guarded by a quartet of heavily armed soldiers and was greeted within by the Armada’s new Captain.

“Airman 626.” Rikke spoke with the same calm authority that she had back at Saiccano. “It’s good to see you again.”

626 saluted again. “Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s going on?”

“This.” She turned on the screen at the front of the chamber. It showed a series of numbers from an outlying system towards the edge of the Federation, and as 626 studied them he noticed that for the past three hours there had been a massive spike in electrical signals from a single moon. There was a complete lack in uniformity or rhythm, and as the data continued to flow in no pattern emerged: it was as though, somehow, the moon had randomly broken out in the lightning storm to end all lightning storms.

He frowned. _It’s interesting, but what’s this got to do with ME? I’m not exactly an electrician._

“You are likely wondering why we thought it best for you to get involved in this,” Rikke began as though she had read 626’s mind, “and the reason is because of an image taken by the local patrolman upon investigating.”

The numbers went away, replaced by a series of images of some sort of creature. It had bright yellow fur and a pair of long, wavy antennae extending out of its’ head like an electrical conductor, eyes of solid navy-blue, and a short, stiff tail shaped like a lightning bolt. _No. It can’t be…_

No creature we have on file looks like that. Nor could any creature survive in the middle of lightning bolts such as the ones this one seems to, let alone be the source of them. Our only conclusion is that whatever this thing is, it’s an…”

“…an illegal genetic experiment.” 626 finished.

“Exactly. And, as the one who took down Leroy – not to mention an Experiment yourself – I think you’re the one best suited to capturing this thing and bringing it in. Particularly since this is to be a solo mission.”

_Yeah, because THAT’S not a bit speciesist_ , 626 thought, although he kept that little thought to himself.

Then the second part of her statement registered. _Wait-a SOLO mission?_ “Permission to ask a question?”

“Permission granted.”

“Why is this a solo mission?”

“Because the less people who know about this, the better.” The First Sergeant spoke for the first time since entering the room. “If we’re to avoid getting people even more up in arms than they already are, this needs to be a quiet capture.”

_Ah. Optics._ A term he’d become very familiar with over the past few days. “I understand.”

“Good. Be prepared to leave in one hour.”

***

- _Uncharted Moon at the Galaxy’s edge, 18:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

Long flights through hyperspace were never fun; after about half an hour or so the lack of anything to do but sit and look out at the cascade of hyperspace was enough to drive 626 to distraction. Over the course of the four-hour flight out to where they’d recorded this new experiment he wound up organizing and re-organizing the logs on his cruiser four times, use his claws to fix a couple of nails in the cockpit that had gotten ajar, adjust the headrest on top of his seat so many times that he lost count (not that it mattered, considering that it was a good two feet above his height level), and had spent the last half an hour before his snap back into realspace running and re-running diagnostics to make sure there was absolutely nothing in his intended trajectory. His last long-term flight through hyperspace had ended in him crashing down to the planet below and subsequently trashing his ship, so this time 626 wasn’t taking any chances.

_Hey, at least that was how I met Lilo._ Not that he had any burning desire to trash a _second_ cruiser on the exit from hyperspace, of course.

Thankfully, he did in fact exit without running into any errant satellites or asteroids or any other type of space junk, and so he was able to approach the moon in the manner he was supposed to. _Of course, it’s going to take me another few minutes…_ He sighed. _Nothing to do but sit back and wait._ Looking out at the moon, he thought he saw the occasional blast of lightning. _Oh, good. That narrows down where to land a bunch_. He’d been worried that he’d come out all this way and completely miss his target, either from them having taken off during the four-hour period he was out of communication or from the simple fact that he would have had an entire moon to search, but it seemed that the universe had decided to let things be a bit easy. For the moment.

He continued forwards. The lightning blasts continued to flash, and as they did 626 noticed something interesting: the really massive ones, the sort that would short out a spacecraft, could only occur after an interval that was presumably a short of recharge period. _Huh. Interesting. THAT’S probably going to be good to know._

Using his upper pair of arms to steer 626 used his lower pair to input a couple of commands and redirects for the cruiser’s power. Then, seeing that he was almost on top of the source of the lightning, he turned on his comm, switched to an open frequency, and spoke.

“This is Airman First Class Experiment 626 of the Galactic Armada, acting on behalf of central command. Whoever is in charge of whatever’s causing that lightning, respond.”

He wasn’t expecting to get an actual response, so it was a surprise when his comm flared back to life less than a minute after making his announcement. “Ahhh, so they _did_ send a genetic experiment to catch a genetic experiment! I wondered. Well, you’ve got me. I’m the one who created Experiment 221. I, and I alone.”

“And how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Ask him yourself.”

As 626 stared down at his comm in confusion, a bright-yellow flash outside caught his eye. As he looked the same creature, they’d showed him in the photos zoomed up and around the ship. Laughing the creature extended his arms and sent out a tiny burst of electricity, which arced towards the cruiser and caused a couple of sparks to leap out from 626’s dashboard.

_I guess where in an atmosphere, then?_ 626 decided to risk opening up the glass cockpit a second. It sprung up with a _fwip_ , and 626 hopped up on the ship’s dashboard to talk to the other experiment face-to-face, planting all six paws as firmly on the metal as he could.

“Is he telling the truth?” He shouted over the wind. “Is that guy the one who created you?”

“Ih!” 221 nodded. “ Yufu isa meega creator!”

“Alright, thanks.” Still keeping his eye on 221, 626 lowered himself back into his seat and tried to get this ‘Yufu’ to speak. “I’m assuming that by ‘Yufu’ he’s talking about you?”

“You…don’t recognize me?” Yufu sounded hurt.

“Should I?”

There was a sigh in response. “No, probably not. Gapra had a lot of people on it, after all. My name is Yufu Tiriol, ex-government scientist.”

“Alright, then, Yufu Tiriol. You seem like a nice person, so I’m sorry to say this, but I need to place you and your creation into detention; you for illegal genetic experimentation, 221 for safety.”

Another sigh. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“221 will be treated fairly, you have my word.”

“I know.” 626 began to hope that maybe things would resolve themselves peacefully. This Yufu fellow was actually rather reasonable, and from the look of it 221 seemed rather well-behaved. Quite excitable and fond of making electric equipment spark, but they could work on that.

“I also know that I can’t let you take us in.”

_Oh, come on._ “It’s not a question of choice. It’s the law.”

“I don’t care.” Yufu’s voice was suddenly cold. “221 needs space to grow. Space to find out what his true talents are. I need to see my work through to the end. I’m sorry, 626, but even though you’re the reason I made 221 in the first place I can’t let you hold us back.”

The comm went silent, and 626 was unable to raise Yufu again. Instead, he looked out at 221. The other experiment hovered in the air for a moment, listening to something, before double-taking and glancing uncertainly at 626’s cruiser and sighing.

Instinctively, 626 slammed the control stick forwards and down and gunned the engines.

A fraction of a second after the cruiser moved, a massive blast of lightning arced through the space where it had been. 626 moved forwards and reversed course to face 221, who was racing towards the moon’s surface as a bright-yellow streak.

626 deployed his cannon. For a brief, shining moment, he’d hoped that it wouldn’t come to this, but it had. Switching the volley to the lowest setting possible, he hoped that 221 was as durable as he was and fired.

221 zigzagged around, dancing this way and that through the air, deftly avoiding every single shot, and then sensing an opportunity zoomed up and readied another massive blast before 626’s cruiser could course-correct.

Indeed, unfortunately for 626 the cruiser had built up too much momentum for 626 to dodge, and so the cruiser had no option but to barrel straight into 221’s trap.

Unfortunately for 221, 626 had figured this might happen. At the press of a button he rerouted all power from both the cannons and the engines, directing it out to the siren at the top of the cruiser. The sirens gave a deafening wail, as though terrified of the electric current, before 221’s blast hit home and silenced them. 626 waited a moment for the sparks arcing around his cabin to subside before attempting to restart the engines, hoping that his gambit had payed off.

It had. 221’s attack had short-circuited almost everything that was active, of course, but as neither the cannon nor the engines had been amongst that category both came back online without much issue.

626 fired a quick shot before 221 could move, a weak one. It wasn’t near the charge of what a shot normally was, even a shot on the weakest setting, but it was still a shot fired far earlier than 221 had expected, and it landed straight in the experiment’s chest.

Or, rather, _passed through it_ and dissipated in the atmosphere below. _Wait, what?_

Apparently 221 wasn’t a solid creature. 221 gave a cry of victory and charged forwards, electricity soaring out from its body –

And smacked right into 626’s glass cockpit and bounced off. 221 blinked and shook his head, confused, before zooming off.

_Ok, what was THAT about?_ Confused, 626 started after the other experiment, who suddenly banked and raced underneath 626’s cruiser. _What’s he doing? He can’t hit me with another big blast yet – it’s not charged enough._ Then why was there a quick, bright flash right behind him?

And why did his computer beep out a warning that the engines had lost power?

_Oh, blitznak._ He’d become complacent. _Just because he doesn’t have enough power to do a full one doesn’t mean that anything’s stopping him from doing a little one, you idiot._

The cruiser started plummeting towards the moon, forcing 626 to frantically pull up on the stick and try to fall into a controlled descent. _Not again not again not again not again_.

Fortunately, whatever moon this was had lower gravity than Earth, and so his descent was both slower and gentler. Shortly afterwards, the engines sputtered back to life.

Unfortunately, by the time he was back in control and could try and make his way over to 221 and Yufu the former had already landed and was running as fast as his legs could take him towards a little ship. Before 626 could stop it the ship blasted off the ground and jumped to hyperspace, leaving him alone on the planet.

_Great, just great. Now what?_

The first order of business was to figure out where they were going, and fast. _Let’s see... was there anything Yufu said that might help with that…_

_He said he wanted to test out 221’s power and abilities; so, where would that take him?_ Turo? Some other big city-planet, to test out how much power 221 could knock out at once? _No…he seems to genial to want to cause mass-damage like that. He’d go somewhere small. But where?_

Yufu had also said that 626 was why he created 221 in the first place. _So he’s what, in imitator? Where would that send him?_

_Gapra?_ No, too big a risk of getting caught.

_Saiccano?_ No, too dangerous.

_And I already ruled out Turo, so that means…_

_Oh. Of. Kriffing. Course._

626 took a deep breath and resisted the urge to scream before exhaling slowly and setting the necessary coordinates into his navicomputer.

Because, of all the planets in the galaxy, _of course_ it had to be Earth that Yufu was going to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeesh, three chapters in and I'm ALREADY falling behind the schedule? Not the best omen.  
> At least this one's longer than normal to make up for it.


	4. Capture

- _Pelekai Household, 13:00 Hawai’i – Aleutian Standard Time_ -

The moment 626 burst out of hyperspace above Earth, he immediately gunned it towards Kaua’i as fast is his ship could go without descending to the island’s surface in a fiery blaze – again – and brought it down to land nearly on top of Lilo and Nani’s house.

They were both away, as 626 had expected seeing as it was barely even the afternoon, and so he decided to take the opportunity to get into contact with command back on Turo.

“Captain Rikke? This is Airman Experiment 626, come in.”

“626? I would have expected you to have returned by now with 221 in hand.” Rikke frowned at him from the communicator before looking down at the signal’s origin and doing a double take. “Wait a minute. Why are you on _Earth?_ ”

“There was a…complication in the hunt for 221. I tracked them here – well, to this planet at least – and intend to pick up the pursuit as soon as possible.”

“What makes you think that 221 and his creator’s on Kaua’i, of all places? You don’t think they’re after Leroy, do you?”

“No, I don’t think he’s got anything to do with this whole mess. It’s more because, well, to put it bluntly…” 626 dropped his voice down, a bit embarrassed. “221’s creator’s a fanboy. A mad scientist fanboy.”

From behind Rikke 626 heard the distinctive sounds of somebody spitting out their drink and falling into a coughing fit. “Wait, _what in space are you talking about_?” Rikke’s mouth was agape.

“Basically this guy – Yufu Tiriol, I think? – sees genetic experiments like me as the pinnacle of creation and wanted to make his own. And so, 221.”

Rikke’s mouth opened and closed rapidly, the Captain entirely at a loss for words.

“At least we can say that they’re not malicious?” 626 ventured. “That’s good, right? Anyways, that’s about where the situation stands.”

“Right, uh, dismissed.” Rikke still seemed royally confused. “Good hunting.”

626 stored the communicator in his pocket before sighing and turning to look down at the town below. _Where are you, 221? You’ve got to be SOMEWHERE…_

A spark downtown caught his attention. As he watched 626 saw a couple of other flickers of electricity, barely noticeable in the sun, but from the way they were hopping from building to building there was no mistaking it: it was 221.

626 started down the hill and ran into town.

***

He was just sprinting through downtown when he bumped into Lilo and knocked her straight to the ground.

“I thought you were going back into space?” She gazed up at him from the sidewalk, head tilted quizzically. “Leroy hasn’t done anything, so you’re not here to take him away, right?”

“No, I’m…here for…another experiment.” 626 panted. “This guy…made one…that…is electric…he’s been causing trouble…all over town.”

Lilo frowned. “So THAT’S why all the lights at school got all weird and blew up! I _told_ Kumu it wasn’t my fault, but he didn’t listen!” Lilo noticed the look of concern on 626’s face and waved her hands. “No one got hurt, don’t worry.”

“Good. How long ago was this?”

“Just a few minutes ago.” She pointed southwards. “He went that way after everything blew up.”

“Thanks. Now get yourself to safety.” 626 started off, but realized almost immediately that Lilo was trailing him. Sighing again, he stopped. “Lilo, it’s not safe. 221’s another Experiment, remember? Like me and Leroy?”

“I know. I’m still coming.”

“But…”

“I helped with Leroy, didn’t I? Maybe I can help again with this one?”

626 relented, both because once Lilo set her mind to something it was impossible to talk her out of it and because, frankly, she was _right_ : without her, the confrontation with 221 would probably just end with him having to stab out someone’s eye again. With her, and maybe they’d be able to talk the other Experiment down.

So off they ran, 626 filling Lilo in on the particulars as they went.

“It’s the strangest thing,” he said as he told her about 221’s run-in with the glass cockpit, “but for some reason he couldn’t get through it.”

“Because he’s made out of electricity?”

“My thoughts exactly. Still, that doesn’t explain how he could walk across the ground with regular paws like a normal creature.”

“Maybe he can change forms?” Lilo suggested. “Like going from electricity to being solid the way water goes from solid to liquid when it turns into ice?”

626 thought it over and gave a _hm_ of approval. “That…actually makes a fair bit of sense.” They rounded the street corner nearby that coffee hut Melia was so fond of, just in time to see 221 burst out of it cackling like a maniac. “Next question: how do we trap him without cutting off his ability to breathe?” 

“Does he need air?”

“I assume so? Better that than assume he doesn’t and accidentally kill him.”

As Lilo ran she scratched her chin. “Hmm… aha!” She snapped her fingers. “They just told us in school that electricity can’t pass through cloth stuff all that well, but I’m pretty sure air can…”

“…So all we have to do is trap him in glass and plug the whole with a bit of cloth!” 626 laughed. “This oughtta be interesting!”

They noticed that 221 turned to the left, a turn that brought him straight into the Birds of Paradise Hotel. 626 and Lilo looked at each other, shook their heads and grinned at the fact that somehow their quarry had managed to find his way to Nani’s workplace by complete coincidence, and charged in after 221.

Sitting in the lobby, staring up in confusion at the fan that had suddenly started to whirl at a good hundred miles per hour before exploding, was a man in a nice cardigan that looked rather breathable. Struck by an idea, 626 tapped Lilo on the shoulder and pointed to the man before running over.

“Can I borrow that cardigan?” He asked.

The man leaped onto the back of the couch with a yelp. “What the _hell?_ A talking six-armed dog?”

“Alien, actually.” 626 held out a paw. “Gimme your cardigan. Promise I’ll pay you back for it when I get the chance.”

Completely nonplussed at the encounter, all the man could do was take it off and hand it to the alien staring at him. 626 dashed off again, leaving the man sitting in a sweaty undershirt and sorely wishing for a nice cup of alcohol. _Perhaps they have something really strong at the bar?_

626 tossed the stolen clothing to Lilo. “Got the cloth. Did you see where 221 went?”

“Into the outdoor restaurant, I think?” They ran through the double doors into what looked like the aftermath of a warzone. “Well, _this_ looks promising.”

626 whistled at the sheer number of upturned tables and chairs. “Yep. Definitely.” _So where is he?_

626’s ear twitched, and he looked up. Sure enough, there was a yellow creature silently crawling upon the wooding scaffolding above them.

“Up there!” 626 bounded up a pole after 221. The other experiment, seeing his pursuer, turned and snarled.

“Meega naga kapu!” _I will not be imprisoned!_

“Not your call to make, buddy.” 626 growled under his breath. “Sorry about that.” He surveyed the scaffolding to try and figure out the best way to get over to 221 without getting fried, and decided that the best way to do so would be to start doing gymnastics. 626 dove forwards and down until he was on the underside of the wood and crawled forwards a few feet before using his arms to hoist himself back on top, deftly avoiding a blast of electricity. 221 started to crawl faster then, and 626 gave chase.

_Hmm…what to get, what to get…_ Lilo needed to find something glass to trap the experiment in, but what was she supposed to get? Trying to get him into glassware would be just rude, and it wasn’t like she could just empty out a fish tank – what about all the fish? That would be like killing Pudge’s cousins!

Her eyes wandered over to a large flower vase. _Hmm… well, they’re not fish…_ Nani would probably be mad at her stealing something, but then she’d probably be mad anyways that she’d decided to chase down yet another experiment instead of going safely home. _Eh, what the heck_.

Lilo grabbed the vase, poured the contents on the ground and set the flowers back on the table, and ran back into the restaurant.

626 had managed to trap 221 in the middle of the room. Noticing Lilo entering again out of the corner of his eye, 626 smirked over at the other Experiment. “Had enough?”

“Naga! Meega done nothing wrong!”

“Yeah?” 626 tried keep 221’s focus on him so that Lilo could get into position. “Then what about all the lights and things you’ve done in today?”

“Naga isa smick. Lights naga living things!” _It’s not a crime_.

“It’s still vandalism, isn’t it? Those weren’t yours to destroy.”

221 looked confused. “Van-dal-is-im? Gaba geik?” _What’s that?_

Now 626 was confused as well: _does he not know what that is? That would be an oversight on Yufu’s part_. So confused was 626 that when 221 angrily launched a blast of electricity at him it went unnoticed until too late. 

Being electrocuted was _not_ a pleasant experience, 626 discovered. The moment 221’s blast struck him 626 felt like the wind had been knocked completely out of him, and for some reason his lungs seemed to completely refuse to work. All six of his limbs promptly spasmed and lost grip before he could force himself to breathe again, and so 626 was sent plummeting back to the ground, 221 laughing all the while.

“626!” Lilo dropped the vase and ran over to him. “Are you okay?”

Unsteadily pushing himself up with his rather-tingly limbs, 626 took a deep breath and forced air back down into his lungs. “Not – not really. Fun fact,” he glared up at the annoyingly smug Experiment above him, “electrocution really, _really_ hurts.” His legs finally seemed able to do their job again, so 626 stood up and tried to get the shaking to stop. “Wouldn’t recommend.”

“No kidding.” Lilo gazed up and saw 221 watching them. “Well, I guess we can’t just ambush him anymore, can we?”

“Nope.” A thought occurred. “How fast can you run?”

“Pretty fast, why?”

Instead of responding, 626 flicked a claw over to the side as subtly as he could. Lilo looked where he was pointing and then over to the line of paper lanterns hanging above and nodded. “Okay, then. Sounds good. I’ll be ready to book it.”

626 smiled at her and then clambered back up a pole nearby 221. “Not helping your case, pal, _really_ not helping.”

221 just growled and turned to crawl away. Precisely in the direction 626 had wanted him to go, which was good and all, but there was one problem:

If 626 wanted to bring down the string of lights and the support, he needed to be in front, otherwise 221 would probably just get away again. So, to remedy that little problem, 626 jumped at an angle and managed to awkwardly grab onto the support beam off to the side. Crawling as fast as his still-tingling limbs would allow he hurried in front of 221 before jumping back across, and before 221 could either blast him again or figure out what was going on 626 punched the support beam as hard as he could. Then, having weakened it, he leapt down, grabbed the line of lights, and swung with it like a vine. Predictably, between the sudden weight and the weakening form his punch, the beam broke. 221 tumbled down the newly created ramp, slipping and sliding as he went, and rolled right into the waiting glass vase like a ball rolling into a goal. Lilo stretched the cardigan over the top and tied it around the glass as tightly as she could before tipping the vase vertically. 221 snarled out her and tried to shift back into current form to escape, but found his way out blocked by both the glass and the cloth, and so was unable to do anything but shout incoherently and bang his paws against the glass.

“Nice catch!” 626 raised his paw for a high-five, which Lilo happily took him up on. “Not so tough now, are you, Sparky!”

221 was about to make a rude gesture when the word ‘Sparky’ registered. “Sparky? Meega, meega like that name.” Oddly, considering his predicament, he grinned.

Lilo grinned back. “Aww, he’s got your smile!”

***

A good five hours later, during which time 626 realized that he’d gone at least a quarter of the day without eating and promptly eaten a good chunk of the restaurant’s menu, someone from the Armada finally arrived. He and Lilo wheeled the newly-christened Sparky over to the ship in a metal wagon, and 626 was surprised to see that it was Adon who had been sent to pick them up – he’d expected either Rikke or that insectoid officer.

He saluted Adon as she directed a couple soldiers to take Sparky into formal custody. “Surprised they let you in on this. I thought it was supposed to be secret?”

“It is, technically,” Adon shook her head, “but something came up. These weird things got into headquarters after this random person in some sort of armor got sucked into a ship, and we’re having a bit of trouble killing them. Everyone else has their hands full dealing with that, and since ‘I have experience dealing with genetic experiments’ according to the Captain, she sent me to pick you guys up.” She glanced over at Sparky, who the soldiers had managed to cram into a proper prison capsule. “So that’s what all the fuss was about? He’s kind of cute.”

626 snorted and massaged one of his arms. “Not really, after he hits you with enough volts to fry an engine.”

“Good thing Jumba made you so tough, then. Now come on – we need to get back to Turo.”

626 and Adon waved goodbye to Lilo, who disappeared back into the Hawai’ian twilight as their ship took off back into orbit.

It had struck her as odd when she’d seen the prisoner, and seeing Lilo again had only reinforced that feeling, Adon felt: For some reason, the prisoner they’d captured had seemed, physically and biologically at least, entirely human.

Which begged the question: how would a member of a non-spacefaring species turn up on Turo, and in a completely spaceflight-capable suit no less?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still trying to settle on a schedule.


	5. Outsiders

- _Planet Turo, 21:00 Turo Standard Time-_

In all the confusion and drama over their capture of Sparky, as well as their subsequent desire to get him back to Turo and into containment as soon as possible, it only dawned on both Adon and 626 that they’d completely forgotten about Yufu over an hour into their trip through hyperspace. The two of them decided that it would be better to go back and try and capture the scientist lest he try and free his experiment, and so after a great deal of grumbling and arguing – along with some profanity – Adon’s ship turned around and went back to Earth. As such, by the time they finally got back to Turo it was already well into the night.

626 stood on the bridge as they came out of hyperspace, trying to think about how long it had been since he’d last gotten some sleep. _Let’s see – I left Turo at one in the afternoon, then got to that moon at about four, then got to Earth at 1 in the afternoon local time, so 4 AM Turo time…_

_Oh my god._

He’d been up well over thirty hours straight. _No wonder I feel half-dead._ Really, it was a wonder that he was still able to stand at all. _Perhaps Jumba made me extra fatigue-resistant?_ 626 mused. _Wish I could’ve asked him_ , _although it’s not like he would’ve answered_.

He felt a stab of jealousy over Yufu and Sparky – separated they might be about to become, at least their relationship was at least _slightly_ positive. _Yufu’s not trying to brainwash Sparky into becoming an instrument of galactic anarchy, at any rate._

Soon afterwards they docked. According to protocol Adon and 626 would have to present the prisoners together, considering that 626 had been the one to actually capture Sparky while Adon had captured Yufu and transited the two of them back to Turo, but if he was being honest with himself 626 had no business giving another debriefing: he needed _sleep_ , and needed it like Nani Pelekai needed a break from having to worry about her sister. So when they disembarked and started to ferry their prisoners down the long, long, hallway to Captain Rikke’s office, 626 took the opportunity to ask for a bit of leave time.

“Excuse me, Adon?”

The Staff-Sergeant looked down at her companion and noticed the bags under his eyes. “Want to just go back to your room and sleep?”

“Well, if it’s not too much…”

“Normally it’s kind of mandatory that you’d be present and with me for this, but I suppose…” she closed her eyes and thought about it. “How long have you been up?

“Thirty hours? More? I’ve lost track.”

She did a double take. “ _Thirty?_ Good lord – go rest. Don’t think anyone’d dispute that you need to.”

“Thanks.” 626 nodded at Adon in gratitude and ran off, hoping that he wouldn’t be needed for the next day. Or two. Or three.

***

- _Galactic Armada Federal Detention Center, 1:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

Stifling a yawn, the Grand Councilwoman walked with Captain Rikke through Cellblock C. That strange Earthling (at least, they were operating under the assumption that he was an Earthling although he had technology far beyond the ken of what Earth was capable of) was very much of interest to her, even more so than Yufu and his creation, particularly in light of those strange creatures they’d been dealing with over the past day.

For some odd feeling, she felt as though they were connected.

The Grand Councilwoman stood on the platform next to Rikke, and together they rose up the column of cells until they were outside of the Earthling’s cell.

Upon seeing him, she frowned; the lad was dressed a bit oddly to be sure and had some sort of metal pauldron on his shoulder, but other than that he looked perfectly harmless. _Not the sort of person to unleash a bunch of nearly indestructible demons, to be sure_.

Still, she had to check. “Is he the one?” She asked captain Rikke.

“Yes, Grand Councilwoman. I’ve confined him until we can determine what he is.”

“He’s an Earthling. At least, I think so.”

“We’ll know for sure one way or another soon enough. I sent some hairs of his down for testing. If they establish him as anything but, what should we do?”

“That depends on what this fellow has to say, I suppose.” She studied him for a few more moments. “Of course, before all that, we need him to wake up.”

They were leaving when Rikke put a hand on the Councilwoman’s arm. “They’re here.” Other hand dropping to her sidearm, the Captain pushed her away from the small, purple things leaping out from the shadows. “Take cover! I’ll hold them off!”

There was little for either of them to do but run, and so they did, as fast as they could.

By either coincidence or some other odd stroke of fate, Yufu was imprisoned within that very same cell block awaiting trial, and as such saw both their arrival and subsequent flight from those strange little monsters.

He also saw what happened afterwards, when the Earthling somehow burst out of his cell and began smashing his way through the creatures with what looked like some sort of stone column thing. _Huh. The finest guns the Armada has can barely even make a dent, but this guy swings around a blunt instrument and tears through them like wet paper._

The moment the last of the creatures fell, Yufu decided to voice his thoughts and call out to the Earthling. “ _Very_ impressive display! What sort of weapon is that?”

Instead of answering, the Earthling merely studied Yufu a moment before starting to walk off.

“Wait! Would you help me? I’ve been imprisoned on a set of false – well, not really _false_ , but patently ridiculous – charges!”

“Is that so?” Save for stopping, the Earthling gave no other indication that he was even remotely interested in what Yufu had to say.

Still, Yufu couldn’t just let someone who was able to bust his way out of a prison cell without any outside assistance go. _I need to talk him into freeing me!_ “I’m just an innocent scientist. All I did was create one singular, itty-bitty life-form – he could probably annihilate those creatures you just fought, now that I think about it – and because of that the Federation’s afraid of him! One look at his strength and ability to control electricity and they took him away and stuffed me in this blasted cell.”

“Because he’s so powerful?”

_Aha_. Yufu noticed that he’d struck a nerve. _I know how to proceed._ “Exactly. Everyone always gets antsy when someone stronger’s around, as I’m getting the feeling you’re well aware?”

The Earthling glanced down at his hand. _Almost got him. Now to reel him in…_

“If we don’t rescue him, he’ll be banished into the farthest reaches of space!” He rushed at the glass. “ _Please_ help me!”

“Okay, then. Take me to him.”

The Earthling raised his weapon and jumped back, pointing it at Yufu’s cell as a beam of light emanated from the tip. A moment later, the glass vanished.

***

- _Galactic Armada Barracks, 2:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

“This is the Grand Councilwoman, paging Senior Airman 626. Repeat, this is the Grand Councilwoman, paging Senior Airman 626. Please respond.”

_Son of a friggin’ –_ Reluctantly, 626 rubbed the sleep from his eyes and fumbled around for his communicator. “This is Senior Airman 626. Acknowledged.”

“Please make your way to my office in the Armada building, as soon as possible. You are needed.”

626 looked at his clock and suppressed a groan. _I didn’t even get five hours of sleep, did I?_

Of course, when the Grand Councilwoman summoned someone they answered, and so 626 reluctantly slipped back into uniform. _This had damn better be important_.

“They escaped? _How_?”

The Councilwoman looked over at Captain Rikke. “It was that other prisoner we captured. The Earthling. Somehow, he burst out of his cell, unlocked Yufu’s, and then went to go free 221.”

“We want you to help bring them back.” Rikke sighed. “I’m sorry that we have to press you into service again, but it’s for the best.”

“I understand.” He really, really, _didn’t_ , but what was he supposed to say.

“Thank you, 626. If I may suggest, if I were you, I would start from 221’s cell and see if you can follow his trail from there.”

“Will do, Captain.”

He was still walking through the corridors when he saw a blue-haired woman standing in one of the teleport rooms connecting various parts of the prison facility. She was examining what looked like burn marks on the building’s walls, and 626 assumed that Sparky had just been there.

He walked over to the woman. “Excuse me?” She turned, and 626 realized that she looked human. _Another one? Odd._ “Has Spark – I mean, Experiment 221 passed through here?”

Her face showed absolutely no recognition of that name. “I don’t understand. Experiment who?”

_Oh, right. Sparky’s still on a need-to-know basis._ “Have you seen any small, yellow, extremely hyperactive creature pass by? Probably really fond of blowing things up?”

“Him? He didn’t _look_ all thought hyperactive…”

“So you _have_ seen him, then?”

“Yes. He escaped into the ceiling.”

626 looked up and swore. “Probably in the wires. Keep an eye out for him, will you? Grand Councilwoman wants him and a scientist he might be with back in custody as soon as possible.”

He began to walk away and was already halfway across the room before things finally clicked. _Wait a moment – she’s a human. What’s she doing here? And wasn’t that other person the Councilwoman was worried about human as well?_

He stopped walking and looked back at the woman. “Say…what section are you from? You don’t look like the rest of us Armada people.”

“Um, I’m, uh…” She stammered a bit, unable to come up with an answer, which told 626 all he needed to know.

Withdrawing one of his plasma pistols, 626 leveled it at the intruder. “Raise your hands above your head, ma’am, and come with me.”

The Grand Councilwoman needed to hear about this.

Escorting in a stranger or no, it was evident to 626 that the Grand Councilwoman was less-than-pleased to see him returning with neither Sparky nor Yufu in custody.

Quite evident.

“What is the meaning of this? Did I not order you to apprehend the fugitives _immediately?_ ”

“With all due respect, my lady, I thought she” – 626 gestured towards the human with a free paw – “was more important.”

The Grand Councilwoman looked at the human, who appeared to be studying her right back. “Another Earthling? Is she connected to those creatures?”

The human sighed and walked forwards. “Don’t worry, my – milady. I’m not up to anything evil. I _am_ connected to those ‘creatures’ as you’ve been calling them, though: I followed them here, actually.” She held out a hand. “My name is Aqua, and it’s my job to follow those things wherever they pop up and stop them. Please, let me handle them. My weapon is the only thing that can stop them.”

Aqua gave a little shake of her hand, and out of nowhere some sort of floral-themed weapon appeared in it. She presented it to the Grand Councilwoman for a moment, and then with another wave of her hand dismissed the thing back into wherever it came from. “Would you like me to give some sort of demonstration?”

After taking a long look at the human, the Grand Councilwoman shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. We are fortunate you are here, Aqua.”

“Hang on – you’re trusting her, just like that? Don’t you think that’s a little, I don’t know, risky?” 626 asked.

“I think you’ll find I’m perfectly capable of choosing who to place my trust in wisely, 626. After all, I did the same for you, did you not?”

“Very well.” _I just hope you’re not being naïve about this, milady._

The Grand Councilwoman continued to address Aqua. “And might I make some other request? To both of you, actually?”

626 and Aqua looked at each other before nodding. Satisfied, the Grand Councilwoman turned to the computer and pulled up images of the two fugitives. “I would like you two to work together. You are to capture these two and combat these creatures, and I will leave it to you to decide both the order and manner in which you will do so.”

626 opened his mouth to protest, but the Grand Councilwoman held up a hand. “It is what is necessary, 626. We cannot defeat these creatures; Aqua can. Aqua is not familiar with 221 or his creator; you are. By working together, we can ensure that when one problem arises there is no danger of the other problem inhibiting efforts to combat it. Dismissed.”

Aqua nodded and turned to leave the room, and 626 followed after giving a quick salute. Joining his new partner he fully expected that she’d attempt to pull some trick once they were out of sight of any potential interference, and as such was pleasantly surprised when she smiled, knelt down, and offered her hand again.

“I’m sorry to drag you into my fight. It’s not fair to you. And I understand why you wouldn’t trust me, but I hope that I can start earning it.”

Cautiously, 626 took her hand. “You can start by saying who you are.”

“My name is Master Aqua. My job is to hunt those monsters – the ‘Unversed’ – wherever they appear. Once that’s done, I promise I’ll be off as soon as possible.”

“My name is Senior Airman Experiment 626. Let’s hope this goes as easily as you’re making it sound.”

Aqua chuckled. “Indeed. Now, where should we start?”

As they walked back to where Aqua had last seen Sparky, 626 found himself wondering weather Aqua really was from Earth. _What sort of human has blue hair? And more importantly, how many humans are as comfortable with our level of technology as she is?_

It was a puzzle, alright, a puzzle he intended to solve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if the original Lilo & Stitch series can have crossovers with other Disney properties, so can I.   
> Next chapter's gonna be less of a rehash of cutscenes from Birth By Sleep, hopefully. It was just easier here.


	6. Aqua

- _Galactic Armada Headquarters, Detention Center, 3:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

Clearing out the Unversed was a far more difficult task than 626 had anticipated: even the smallest ones were surprisingly durable and took a good five shots of plasma to go down, and most of them were far worse, topping out with massive, ball-like red ones that swelled up and exploded with enough force to knock him clear across the room unless they were hit in a specific spot on their back. Truth be told, fighting them was easily one of the hardest things 626 had ever done, and he knew that clearing them all out would take a herculean effort on their part.

At least, it would have, had it not been for Aqua. Suspicious he may have still found her, 626 had to admit that, when it came to quashing the damn pests, she made it look easy. Even if her chosen weapon looked more like a stylized key/bouquet thing than something that belonged on a battlefield.

_Although_ , he mused as he watched her strike a bunch of the little purple Unversed with a surprising amount of grace before elegantly firing off a trio of fireballs towards a pair that looked for all the worlds like living radar dishes, _it certainly fits her fighting style_.

Having finished up all of their opponents while he was thinking, Aqua looked back at 626 and noticed he was panting with effort. “Are you holding up back there alright?”

626 noticed her complete lack of exhaustion and was hit with a pang of envy. “How in _space_ are you not tired yet?”

“I’ve been doing this for a while. Like I said, it’s my job.”

“These things have popped up before?”

“Lots of places.”

_First I’ve heard of ‘em._ 626 found that rather strange. _But then again, so’s everything about her._

The hallway to Sparky’s cell was still clear, so 626 decided to take the opportunity to go on a fishing expedition. “Any on your homeworld?”

“My world? Not that I can recall…”

“So Earth’s still safe, then.”

“Where?” Aqua seemed to realize a moment too late what was going on. “Oh, um, yeah. Earth’s never had an Unversed problem.”

So she wasn’t from Earth, then. _Next question_. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, what ARE the Unversed, actually?”

They’d reached the door of Sparky’s cell, and while 626 keyed in the door’s unlock code Aqua explained.

“I can’t really go into details, exactly, but to put it simply they’re born from the negative emotions in human hearts.” She looked at him. “And non-human hearts, I suppose.”

626 finished keying in the code. “So what – every time I have a bad day one spawns somewhere?”

“Not exactly. I think it takes some kind of outside force to act as a catalyst for the emotions to mutate? I’m not sure…”

Before either of them could puzzle it out further, the door swished open. Cautiously, slowly, 626 took point and entered the room with all his plasma guns drawn. As he’d figured the room was almost completely empty, save for a couple of electrical burn marks on the wall, a burst light, and –

A strange, star-shaped amalgamation made out of a disconnected gun barrel and various other spare parts was in the middle of the floor. 626 picked it up and studied it, not sure what it was.

He held it out to Aqua. “Any idea what this is?”

Taking it for herself Aqua held the strange object, frowning. “This looks like the Wayfinders… but, how’d it get here?”

“Wayfinders?”

“Charms me and my friends made, so that even when we’re apart there’s still something connecting us.”

“Ah.”

Just then, 626 noticed a flickering light out of the corner of his eye. “Aqua, GET DOWN!”

She ducked, and not a moment too soon. Sparky burst out of the light and charged her, stealing the Wayfinder out of her hand and landing on the floor on the opposite side of the cell.

Noticing 626, Sparky growled. “Yuuga.”

“Me.” 626 leveled his guns at the other experiment. “Now come quietly, and we won’t have to make things difficult.”

“Wait a moment.” Although Aqua had her weapon at the ready, she held her other hand in front of 626 and shook her head before taking a step towards Sparky. “Tell me, where did you get that?” The experiment continued to growl at her, so she smiled reassuringly. “I won’t bite – promise.”

Sparky dropped his guard a fraction upon noticing her weapon. “Terra koogoobita meega. Said isa friendship sign.”

Aqua looked back at 626. “What did he say?”

“He said that this ‘Terra’ person showed him one.”

The name ‘Terra’ made Aqua gasp. “He was here?”

Apparently done talking, Sparky turned to leave, and before either of them could do anything he shifted back into his electrical form.

“Wait!” Aqua cried out as he dove into a light. “I just need to ask you –”

But Sparky was gone.

“We need to go after him. Where would he go?”

626 thought about it. “The launch deck, maybe? Or the power generator?”

“Alright. Come on – we need to go. _Now_.” Aqua took off running back down the hallway.

“Hold on a second, will you? You don’t even know where that is! And besides, we can’t just run off willy-nilly. Why’s this Terra guy so important to you, anyways?”

Aqua stopped and looked back at him. “I’ve been following him from world-to-world. I need to stop him.”

“Why?”

“I just need to. It’s personal.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“Not unless you can make him actually listen to sensible advice, for once. All he does is just charge in everywhere half-cocked, and it always makes things worse for everyone he runs across.” Aqua’s fist had clenched, 626 noticed, and she looked like she was about to start shaking.

But instead, Aqua forced herself to take a deep breath. “But first things first, I guess. You’re right – we need to take out the Unversed, and bring that experiment into custody. Maybe after that I can ask him.”

She started walking again, this time at a much slower pace, and 626 led her towards the launch deck.

***

“626?” They had just finished clearing out a swarm of those stupid balloon Unversed from one of the central hub rooms when Aqua spoke as she stared at her own Wayfinder.

“What’s up?” 626 leaned against the wall and tried not to slide down to the floor. Taking out these stupid things was _exhausting_.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.” 

“What do you do when you have a friend who always gets himself into trouble without listening to a word you say? How do you stop them from doing something they’ll regret?”

626 thought of Spon, and his tendency to always shoot his mouth off, and of Lilo, and her habit of getting herself into dangerous scrapes no matter how many times she was told that she was risking her life by doing so. “Honestly, I’m not sure you always can. Sometimes all you can do is catch them when they fall and stay by their side.” He looked up at her. “Still thinking about Terra?”

“Yep. I just wish I could get through to him.”

“Have you tried actually _talking_ to him?”

“Of course! A couple days ago the two of us ran into each other, and I told him about why he needed to stop going off on his own, but he…he didn’t take it well.”

626 raised an eyebrow. “Did you actually talk to him, or did you just lecture his ear off?”

“Come again?”

“No offense, Aqua, but it seems to me like you’ve just been saying ‘he needs to listen to me’ and ‘he needs to drop everything and go home’, and although I’ll admit that I’ve never met this Terra guy, put yourself in his shoes: if someone just talked _at_ you instead of talking _with_ you, how’d _you_ take it.”

Aqua closed her eyes. “Fair point. But, honestly, you’re one to talk.”

“Excuse me?” Now it was 626’s turn to be nonplussed.

“From what you’ve been telling me, it feels like you’ve been acting that way towards Sparky – not listening to what he has to say and chasing him around like some kind of ticking time bomb.”

“Touché.” 626 said the word rather sulkily. “I guess we both just have stuff to work on, then.”

Aqua chuckled. “Maybe. Now come on – you said this is the launch deck, right?”

626 nodded and was about to open the door when it swung open all on its own.

Through the opening stepped Yufu, who was busily muttering to himself. “Now, where did 221 get off to? We need to get out of here fast before they find us, much as I’d like to stay and see if I can find out why his encounter with that Terra boy led him to…” Looking up for the first time, he noticed Aqua’s Wayfinder and gasped. “That shape! It’s just like the star my creation made!”

“Yeah, we’ve gathered that.” Upon noticing 626 Yufu paled, but at least this time he had the common sense not to do anything rash. “Where _is_ said creation, by the way?”

Yufu shrugged as he raised his hands above his head. “Like I just said, I have no idea. And it’s not like I’d tell you even if I _did_ know.” He looked at Aqua’s Wayfinder again, and then at its owner. “What is the significance of that charm? The other human was really protective of it and said that a friend of his gave it to him – is it something special?”

“He…he really said that to you?”

“Yes. Got all emotional over it, too. That must be why 221 decided to make his own.”

Clearly relieved, Aqua exhaled. “So you’re still alright, Terra.” Smiling, she clutched her Wayfinder to her chest as she addressed Yufu. “You don’t know how good it is to hear that.”

Yufu grinned back before looking at 626 again. “I’m assuming that saying that doesn’t change your desire to bring me in?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Damn. Well, I suppose there’s no helping it. Unless…” He looked at Aqua, imploring her to intervene, but her attention was elsewhere.

“626,” her weapon materializing in her hand, Aqua took a step past Yufu through the doorway, “is there anything near here that something might want to attack? Something that wants to cause as much damage as possible?”

“Why? What did you see?”

“Remember what I said about how most worlds have a big catalyst for all the Unversed? Well, turns out in this case that it’s a big one. A _very_ big one.”

626 got a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Which way did it go?” He shifted his eyes away from Yufu just long enough to look out the window. It was only a moment, but it was long enough to see the end of a tentacle flit out of few as something flew to their right. _Oh, blitznak._ “Why, I believe it’s going to the central generator room.”

“I should have figured. Which way?”

“Just across the launch deck. There’s an antechamber, but that’s about it. I’ll be right behind you.”

Aqua took off, and 626 motioned Yufu to follow her. “Not letting you out of my sight, buddy. Now come on, we’ve got a monster to hunt.”

Yufu opened his mouth to protest, but, thinking better of it, instead turned to run after Aqua.

The thing, whatever it was, would have easily been one of the most bizarre creatures 626 had ever seen if it didn’t have to compete against the likes of himself or Sparky: it resembled some sort of squid-jellyfish hybrid, albeit colored silvery-black, and had an honest-to-goodness human head on the top.

As well as the ability to shoot lightning from its various tentacles. Judging from her pained expression some of these blasts had already caught Aqua, and as 626 and Yufu entered the room the creature slammed her into the wall. She fell to the floor and attempted to stand up, using her weapon as a sort of crutch, but it was clear she was in a bad way. For its part, rather than finish her off the creature went over to the massive generator in the center and began sucking out the power.

Yufu grabbed 626’s arm and pointed to a computer terminal. “Can you keep that thing distracted for a little while? I need to shut the power off before it sucks everything away.”

“I can try.” While Yufu ran towards the terminal 626 charged at the creature, blasting away with his guns. Not that the shots seemed to do any more damage than if he’d been flicking wet paper at it.

So instead, 626 decided that if plasma wasn’t going to do anything perhaps his body would. After taking a moment to steel himself he launched himself at the thing, landing in the middle of the body with a _thump_.

It was, honestly, disgusting. The creature’s membrane was so gelatinous that 626 was surprised he didn’t pass straight through it, and the membrane had a sickeningly damp feeling to it as well as the smell of rotting meat. Still, much as he regretted it 626 felt that body-slamming the creature was the right call, as the thing shuddered and pulled away from the generator before using a tentacle to slam 626 halfway across the room. Then, instead of reattaching itself to the generator the creature raised its’ lowest tentacle and began charging a massive blast of electricity. Seeing it, 626 winced and got to his feet, readying himself and hoping that, at the very least, this would be less painful than what Sparky had caused.

He never found out, because when the creature fired an answering blast erupted into existence. The two blasts collided and exploded with enough force that everyone in the room had to shield their eyes, and when the light dissipated 626 saw something that he really, _really_ hadn’t expected.

Sparky stood in front of him, growling at the creature. “Naga! Yuuga no hurt cousin!”

_Cousin? What in space is he talking about?_ 626 shrugged mentally. _No time to think about that now._ “Thanks for that. And, uh, sorry.” Aqua had been right, he realized. “I shouldn’t have been so hasty in judging you. Although you still shouldn’t have tried to fry me back on Earth.”

Sparky smiled back at him and nodded before growling at the creature, which responded by barreling towards the two experiments.

A second later a massive blast of ice erupted under the creature’s midsection, sending it spinning. Aqua had recovered and was running towards them, weapon in hand, ready to finish the fight.

“What are you doing?” She admonished Sparky. “It’s too dangerous for you here!”

“Meega fight! Meega help stop kapthong!”

“He says he wants to help us stop the monster.” 626 pointed his plasma guns at the creature and readied to fire. “So, why don’t we let him help?”

“Is this that ‘be there to catch them when they fall’ thing you were talking about?”

“More or less, I suppose.”

Aqua sighed and raised her weapon into a fighting position. “Well, I guess it can’t be helped.”

Sparky stepped up next to her, ready to fight, and as he did so 626 wondered about how it would go over when it eventually came out that the fate of the Armada’s headquarters had come down to a criminal, an illegal genetic experiment who was supposed to be in prison, another illegal genetic experiment that was still probably distrusted by a fair portion of the galaxy, and a completely random human.

A completely random human that was a walking contradiction vis-à-vis the rest of her species, to boot.

Yep. Definitely wasn’t going to go over well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Aqua's gonna be around for an entire chapter more than I intended, not to mention completely taking Ventus' role from Birth By Sleep. Least that bit was actually planned.


	7. Charges

- _Galactic Armada Headquarters, Machinery Bay, 4:30 Turo Standard Time_ -

Aqua took a sip of some kind of drink before throwing her weapon like a boomerang towards the creature, causing it to reel away from the central generator in pain. “So, what’s the plan?” She asked as it returned to her.

“How should I know? You’re the one that fights these things.” Another blast of electricity came arcing his way, and 626 instinctively began to dodge it before Sparky intercepted with his own electrical blast, after which 626 followed up with a couple more blasts from his guns to keep the creature focused on them. To complete the distraction, Sparky zoomed out and began to lead the creature around the room.

Aqua frowned. “Well, so far it doesn’t seem all that intelligent, as it’s really only attacking us in order to keep us away from the power source. It’s not using any sort of strategy, either – it’s more like an animal?”

626 nodded. “I see it.” _Of course, most animals aren’t this tough, now are they?_ “So then: how do we make it die? My plasma guns aren’t doing much, Sparky’s barely doing anything over there, and the only attacks of yours that are making a dent are the ones where you actually hit the thing with your, uh…”

“Keyblade. And of course, those are the ones I’m not very good at.” She gazed up at the creature. “If only we could find a weak point…”

As they spoke the creature divebombed Sparky, nearly taking Yufu out in the process and causing the scientist to let out a _yelp._

“Hello!? A little less talking and a little more killing, please? I can’t shut this reactor down with that squid monster from hell flying around everywhere!”

626 had an idea. “Ok, stupid question: if the goal’s to shut the power off, why can’t we just let the thing feed until it’s full? That’s basically what it’s doing, isn’t –”

The creature smacked Sparky onto the floor before floating in front of Aqua and 626, tail raised. _What’s it doing?_ Was all 626 had time to think before the creature fired some sort of beam.

“Look out!” Aqua leapt in front of 626 at the last second and stretched out her hand, somehow forming some sort of silvery barrier around the two of them.

“How are you –”

“No time to talk – can’t hold this for long!” The creature dropped the beam for just a moment, and in that moment Aqua released the barrier and launched another set of fireballs, forcing it to fly upwards. “You wanted to know why we can’t just let it feed? _That’s_ why. The more it feeds, the stronger it gets.”

“Noted. So then, about that weak point: any ideas?”

Aqua dodged a tentacle before shrugging. “Not sure. The head, maybe?”

“Maybe.” 626 looked over at Sparky. “What do you think? You were right up next to it there.”

Sparky answered a large blast of electricity with his own. “M…meega naga nota.” _I don’t know._

_Sparky’s getting tired,_ 626 realized. _We really DO need to end this quickly._ And to do that, they’d need to find Aqua’s weak spot, but of course they couldn’t do that if they were always on the defensive like this…

Another tentacle lashed out. 626 grabbed it, trying not to wretch from sheer disgust, and threw it slammed it onto the ground. The creature shuddered and withdrew again, opting to continue feeding.

“Can you guys hurry it up? This thing’s already drained about a quarter the building’s power!”

Yufu was right, 626 knew – they needed a solution, and they needed it now, but how could they do that when they were barely able to harm it?

An option came to him. It was a stupid one, to be sure, but it was an option nonetheless.

“Aqua? I’ve got an idea, but it’s…well…”

“At this point I’ll try anything.”

“Good. Then please throw me.”

“Uh – huh? _Throw you?_ How would that – _oh._ ”

Aqua took to the idea quickly, it seemed; a bit too quickly, in 626’s opinion considering the fact that immediately afterwards she grabbed him by the back of his uniform and lobbed him straight at the creature without so much as a warming, but 626 supposed it was better than complete opposition. He landed with a rather disgusting _squelch_ , and immediately afterwards he crawled up to the creature’s face and punched it as hard as he could.

The creature shuddered again and tried to throw him off, but 626 held firm. _Hmmm – that got the same reaction as the tentacle._ He then crawled down to the stomach and punched again, and once more he got the same reaction. _Okay, so none of these are the weak point. What about under the tentacles?_

Getting there was going to be a bit difficult, especially with the creature twisting and writhing as it was, but he needed to try. Dodging the tentacles left and right 626 tried to make his way down, eventually managing to flip under a tentacle and following back upwards, and was rewarded by a pulsating core in the middle of the creature’s stomach area. _Aha!_ He gave it another punch.

The reaction was instant. The creature writhed even harder, tentacles flailing and smacking against 626 hard enough to almost drop him off, before letting loose a massive blast of electricity that sent him flying halfway across the room.

By the time 626 was able to stand up, the creature had reattached itself to the central generator.

“Are you alright?” Aqua ran over.

“N-n-not r-really.” Tongue all numb again, 626 forced the words out. “But at – at least I managed to find the w-weakness. Th-there’s a core of some kind u-under the tentacles. Hit it, and the crea-creature should drop.”

Sparky looked at the creature and frowned. “Naga helpful now, cousin. Can’t hit it.”

“He’s right. Unless we manage to unstick that thing somehow and get it to actually stand – er, fly still, it’ll be too hard.”

626 thought a moment, another idea taking root in his brain. “What if it’s directly above us?”

“I mean, in _theory_ , but how could you make it stay there?”

He looked at the creature, then at its choice of meal, then over at Sparky. “I think I’ve got something. Sparky – are you completely out of juice?”

“Juice? Yuuga mean shock it? But meega thought that didn’t hurt it?”

“We don’t need to. We just need it to chase you.”

“Chase him? Why? How does that let us hit it?”

“It will – if, Sparky, you make sure to lead the thing right…” 626 looked around, thinking. “…there.” He pointed to a space a little to the right and up halfway above the room. Sparky looked over, considering, and nodded.

“Ih. Meega understand.”

Aqua bit her lip. “It’s a bit risky, isn’t it? We’ll only have, what, one shot?”

“We’ll need to make it count, then.” 626 tightened his grip on his own guns and found it distressingly weak; that last electric shock was still getting him.

“I understand.” Aqua braced herself. “I just hope this works.”

“Me too. Sparky? On three. One…Two… _THREE!_ ”

After taking a breath Sparky leapt back into the air and flew towards the creature, peppering it with small blasts of electricity until it detached from the central generator and began to fly after him. Sparky then flew up and around the room, continuing to blast while gradually increasing the intensity, and sure enough the creature followed him the entire time; in fact, 626 couldn’t help but notice that the harder Sparky blasted the harder that the creature seemed to pursue him. _Excellent. It REALLY wants his electricity, doesn’t it?_

Several moments into the chase, Yufu was able to take advantage of the distraction long enough to finish his own work. The lights flickered and turned to emergency power as the generator began to slowly shut down, the occasional warning klaxon blaring.

It was pure happenstance, but at the same time it was a godsend. With the generator shutting down and ceasing to give power to anything in the room, it would only be a matter of time before the creature would have nothing to feed on but Sparky. It would be desperate, and thus all the easier to take down.

In theory.

The creature seemed to realize it as well, as for the first time in the entire fight it vocalized. It emitted a singular, cutting shriek that cut right through 626 to the point that he nearly wanted to rip his ears clean off, only restraining himself by gritting his teeth hard enough to nearly shatter them.

As it shrieked the creature continued to chase after its prey. Sparky continued to evade, and whether due to the sound or the sudden change in fortune he decided to make an end to it, flying down to the designated spot.

“Cousin! Aqua!” he shouted, urging the two to focus and tear their attention away from the noise, before facing the creature and snarling at it.

Electricity began to course down his antennae; first one bolt, then two, then three, then too many to count.

“Yuuga…”

Aqua, 626, and Yufu all felt every single hair on their body stand up as the atmosphere filled with electricity.

“Naga…”

626 realized his legs were shaking and planted them as firmly on the floor as he could.

“Hurt…”

The creature raised its tentacles, preparing to receive the gift. The core was almost completely exposed.

“ANYONE!!!” Sparky blasted out all the electricity left in him.

There was a great flash before the entire room began to rumble as though someone had dropped a bomb on it, the entire floor shaking hard enough that Aqua and 626 almost lost their footing. As they struggled to remain upright the creature began to pulsate, absorbing the energy with tentacles raised above its head, the core shining vibrantly like some perverse light.

626 heard himself shout “ _Aqua! NOW!_ ” before raising his guns and stepping forwards to take the shot –

His legs, still weak from all the electricity being thrown around, collapsed just before he could take the shot. 626 tumbled to the floor, all four guns flying off across the floor. _Oh, blitznak!_ He looked up at the creature, did a quick calculation, and realized that there was no way he could reach them in time to take the shot. _Aqua…_

Aqua leapt into the air, twisting with a grace beyond anything she’d shown before, her Keyblade lighting up with some strange, white light, another barrier forming around her. In one swift movement she slammed into the creature with the barrier, knocking it off balance while her Keyblade slashed straight through the core, nearly severing it and raining down some liquid. The creature screamed and tried to flee, but as it did so Aqua landed on a raised walkway with a roll and jumped back into the air.

At least, 626 _thought_ she did. She almost seemed to _vanish_ somehow before suddenly appearing to the creature’s right, slashing a few times before somehow appearing to the other side. Then she was somehow right under the creature, primed to take another slash, and wasting now time Aqua cut clear through. Then, as though what she had just done was completely ordinary, she dropped back to the ground, panting from the exertion.

The creature let out one final scream before shuddering violently and crumpling to the floor, dead. Its corpse lingered for several seconds before vanishing, leaving no trace behind save for the scorch marks covering the room.

Aqua, 626, and Sparky looked at each other, breathing, heavily, before breaking out in absurd, giddy laughter. The power now completely off Yufu strode back over and joined in, composure gone from all four of them in the post-battle euphoria.

“Well,” Yufu finally managed to get out when they’d all calmed down enough to speak, “I hope that’s worth at least _some_ sort of commutation.”

“ _That_ remains to be seen.” A stern voice from across the room caused all four of them to turn at once; it was the Grand Councilwoman, an entire squadron of guards in tow. “I was watching everything on the monitor, and while I will admit that you certainly played a role in the defeat of that…thing… I am not sure whether it justifies a reduction in your sentence.” She transferred her gaze to Sparky, who visibly wilted, ears drooping as he stared at the floor. “For _either_ of you.” Then, turning to Aqua and 626, her demeanor softened slightly. “You’ve been of great service, you two. Thank you.”

Aqua looked over at Sparky and tensed, as though about to say something, but she remained quiet.

“Sergeant Revil, escort the prisoners back to their cells. I want their guard tripled until 221 has been safely taken into exile.”

_Exile?_ The thought of Sparky being marooned on an asteroid in the middle of space made 626 go cold. That sort of punishment was expected, of course, but the idea of the poor experiment spending his entire life on a frozen rock in the middle of nothing…

Sparky’s punishment was too much for Aqua to handle, either. Almost the moment the soldiers stepped forwards to cuff the two prisoners she ran forwards as well until she and the Councilwoman were face-to-face. “Please, your highness! Would you consider sparing Sparky – I mean, Experiment 221?”

The Councilwoman raised an eyebrow. “Spare him? He’s an extremely dangerous creature. He nearly killed Airman 626 multiple times. I _cannot_ release such a menace.”

626 was unable to contain himself. “But Leroy gets a free pass?”

Now it was 626 who found himself under the Councilwoman’s steely gaze. “Did you not personally request that Leroy get a ‘free pass’, as you put it? And besides, the matter was entirely different – Leroy was as much a victim of his creators as he was an aggressor, and your friend Lilo has succeeded in changing his behavior for the better. I see no indication that either of those are true for 221.”

“But he’s at least _trying_ to change, your highness.” Aqua protested. “He helped us fight, and not only that, but he defended us both! Several times! It seems like me that Sparky’s doing his best to become a better person, and believe it or not I really think he can succeed.”

“All due respect, milady, Aqua’s right. I think Sparky over there’s doing his best to turn over a new leaf, and I want to help him along.” 626 smiled. “And considering that I’m saying that even after he tried to barbeque me like three times, doesn’t that mean something?”

The Councilwoman studied 626, Aqua, and Sparky in turn before shaking her head and sighing. “Honestly. It’s going to mean my head, but…very well. _If_ Experiment 221 – I mean, Sparky behaves himself, I will pardon him.” She glared over at Yufu, who was watching her with a hopeful look on his face. “Don’t get your hopes up, Tiriol. You’re still a deserter.”

Yufu blinked before shrugging and allowing the soldiers to handcuff him. As they marched him past Aqua and 626, he stopped.

“Thank you both.” Then he was off. Sparky watched him go, visibly about to cry. 626 felt a stab of envy; if only Jumba had cared for _him_ enough to stir that sort of reaction.

But that was not something to be dwelled on. 626 walked over to Sparky and gently squeezed his paw. “It’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Aqua came over as well. Bending over, she smiled down at Sparky and held out her hand. “I liked that charm you made. Maybe my circle of friends could become part of yours?”

Sparky grinned. “Ih!”

Aqua smiled back. “My friends are Terra and Ventus. One day, when all of my work calms down, I’ll have to come by with them and say hello.”

“Are you not staying, Aqua?” The Councilwoman asked. “We could use someone of your abilities in our ranks.”

“I can’t, ma’am. My duty lies elsewhere.” Offering her hand again, this time to 626, she continued to smile. “It was fun, though.”

626 took her hand in his paw and gave it a firm shake. “It really was. Farewell and good luck, Master Aqua.”

“And to you as well, Senior Airman Experiment 626.”

Aqua then stepped away and vaulted up the walkways until she came to an open window. Then, touching the pauldron on her shoulder, she leapt upwards as some sort of armor and a strange vehicle appeared around her. Aqua gave one last wave, and then took off to parts unknown.

626 watched her go, unable to suppress his curiosity: for all that Aqua seemed a normal human on the surface, everything from her weapon to her technology was the exact opposite.

_Now… where in SPACE does she actually come from?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I owe an apology. A big one. Put this on hiatus for what? Five months? And writing two entire fanfics in that time in other fandoms?   
> Yeesh. Sorry about that. All I can say is that I kinda lost inspiration there for a while, and by the time I was able to get it again I'd started working an actual job and thus didn't exactly have much time to write...  
> Add in the guilt at starting something only to essentially abandon it like a tenth of the way through...  
> But anyways I've really been feeling the writing bug again lately, and since my hours at work have been a bit more lenient as of late there's more time to get a-writing. Not saying that we'll get any weekly schedule or anything up and running, but with any luck - and I'm crossing my fingers here - I'll actually start updating this thing at least a few times a month.   
> So again, sorry for dipping out on this for so long, and here's hoping that I can get more consistent again.


	8. Aftermath

- _Galactic Federation Headquarters, Planet Turo 10:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

“Explain yourself, Madame Councilwoman!” The Phemian Councilman slammed both fists onto the podium in front of him, shouting above the chatter taking hold across the room.”

The Councilwoman similarly raised her voice. “It was a calculated measure to protect the Federation from damages by a monster the likes of which have _never_ been encountered before!”

Apparently her explanation was less than satisfying to the Councilman from Tarbus, who shouted back. “So you sent _some random intruder_ to do the job?!”

“Aqua was the only person available with the necessary knowledge to defeat the creatures and root out their source. If it weren’t for her, odds are we’d still be trying to fend them off!”

626 noticed the beads of sweat running down the Councilwoman’s face and realized that he’d never seen her this tense before, not even when she’d had to give a report on the break-in at The Vault. It wasn’t hard to see why. Just as he’d predicted, once details of how Aqua had been given free run of the base – along with the fact that she’d unilaterally pardoned a creature that most probably still considered a highly dangerous monster – had broken to the press it was utter pandemonium, and it seemed as though every delegate in the Council Chamber had started baying for blood.

“I also take issue with your insinuation that I let Aqua carry out her work unsupervised, Councilman Sar. Senior Airman Experiment 626 accompanied her the entire time, and had she tried anything untoward he was under _strict_ orders to detain her.”

626 groaned as quietly as he could. _I was WONDERING when they’d pull me into this._

“626 can’t be trusted!” The Phemian retorted. “He fought to get amnesty for that abomination of Hämsterviel’s, remember? How can we _possibly_ think he has the best interests of the Federation at heart?”

“ _Mind your tongue, Councilman._ ” After stepping forwards to speak Captain Rikke very nearly hissed into the microphone. “Experiment 626 is a war hero. I have no reason to doubt his loyalty, nor does anyone else. The decision to give Leroy an amnesty was approved by the entire naval board, so if 626 is a traitor, than we all are.”

“Are you suggesting that I –”

“That will do, Sar.” Another Councilman spoke, this time in the most simpering, liquid voice 626 had ever heard before. He looked over to see where the voice was coming from, and traced it to a tall, fox-like man with golden fur. He noticed 626 watching him and flashed a mocking smile before clearing his throat. “While I share your concerns, I will concede that Experiment 626 has conducted himself heroically on many occasions in the past.” He paused a moment before jutting a single finger in the air. “However, I must confess that I find myself troubled by his tendency to be, perhaps, _overly lenient_ with fellow…creations.”

626 got what the Councilman was picking at and tensed up. “221 proved himself by fighting alongside me, Councilman.” His reply was stiff and a bit too angry for his own liking. “Not to mention that I only ceased hunting him upon Aqua’s suggestion.”

“Ah, yes.” The Councilman shook his head and _tsked_. “The mysterious intruder. Now, I will concede that she seems to have been helpful, but I’m curious: Grand Councilwoman, where _has_ this mystery woman gotten off to?”

“She departed to continue the fight against those creatures elsewhere.” The Councilwoman’s reply was palpably frosty.

“Where, exactly? Surely you can give us a star system, at least.” The lack of an answer caused the Councilman to – if it was even possible – grin even wider. “Oh, my. Such a lack in security.” He turned to the rest of the council, paws outstretched. “It seems, fellow delegates, that the Grand Councilwoman sees nothing wrong in not only letting a completely unknown individual enter government property, but also with letting them leave without so much as an inkling of where they’re heading off to! Not to mention bypassing our established system of justice the moment something begs pathetically enough.”

At that the Council erupted back into a shouting match. 626 took advantage of the opportunity to edge closer to the Councilwoman, who visibly looked as though she wished nothing more than to reach out and throttle the Councilman where he stood.

“Who’s _that_ lovely piece of work?” He asked when he was along side her.

“Councilman Forneo of Magnis.” The Councilwoman never took her eyes off Forneo, who seemed to be lapping up the chaos his words were causing. “Recently-anointed leader of the opposition and almost assuredly my opponent in the next Grand Councilor election.”

“Every single word out of his mouth makes me want to go take a shower.”

The Councilwoman replied with a bitter laugh. “I know what you mean. The golden fool’s been trying to undercut me every day for the past four months. As you can tell, he’s very good at it.”

Gazing out at the chamber and listening to the chorus of angry voices, 626 found it impossible to disagree.

***

The Council Session dragged on for another three hours, most of which consisted of varying councilors shouting at 626 and the Grand Councilwoman while Forneo egged them on, and after it ended the Councilwoman stormed off so fast that 626 almost didn’t realize she was gone. He caught up to her in the cafeteria, where she was stabbing some type of meat with a fork hard enough to nearly break it. She looked up, noticed 626 watching her, and beckoned him to come over.

“Do you need something, milady?” 626 asked as he took a seat.

“Well, ideally someone to vent to, but that is neither professional nor fair to you.” She forced herself to take a deep breath before continuing. “You’re taking Sparky to Gapra, correct?”

“Yes ma’am. Adon and Ritska think they can both study and make use of his abilities there.”

“With his consent, of course?”

“Naturally.” 626 laughed. “Adon made Ritska promise not to get start poking him with instruments the second he lands.”

“Good. I hope he’ll flourish there.”

“Well, he’ll find the place more open than I did.” _Even though that’s kind of a low bar to clear._

The Councilwoman nodded. “Agree. Adon certainly is doing well as head officer over –”

“Ah, Grand Councilwoman! I was _hoping_ to find you in here!” Forneo waltzed into view, swaggering towards the table carrying a large soda and a tray of perfectly-cut salad. Without so much as asking if he was intruding on anything he sat down directly across from the Councilwoman and crossed his legs. “Listen- my apologies if I angered you in there.”

“You were merely raising concerns you thought needed to be addressed.” Every word out of the Councilwoman’s mouth was icier than the last.

“Still, it can’t be fun having the entire council yelling at you at once.” Forneo shifted his gaze to 626. “Although I imagine that it pales in comparison to finding out that much of the galaxy still thinks of you as a monster.” He stuck out a slickly combed paw. “Well, you can rest assured that I am not one of that number. I find you truly inspirational, a credit to all artificial creations.”

626 took the Councilman’s paw in one of his and gave it a brusque shake, quietly fighting the urge to punch him out with the other three while uttering a quick “thank you.”

“Oh, you’re very welcome, Airman. Now, I couldn’t help but hear you two talking about sending the new one down to Gapra. That will be good, to get it out of the public eye.” He looked back at 626. “You will be going as well, I assume? To help him adjust? Once again I will hasten to add that I am _not_ one of those that thinks ill towards you and your kind, but it would probably do good for you to get out of the public’s eye again.”

626 opened his mouth to protest before reluctantly closing it again; loath as he was to give the pompous idiot sitting next to him any credit, it was true. “Perhaps. I’ll have to bring it up with Captain Rikke.”

“I’m sure she’ll approve it.” He gave the Councilwoman a significant look. “Provided that you sign off on it, of course, milady.”

“I’ll consider it.”

Forneo nodded and took the opportunity to point something out to the Councilwoman across the room. What it was 626 had no idea, only that it took the idiot’s eyes off his perfectly prepared food.

Perfectly prepared food that was to be washed down with a highly carbonated soda.

One that was still unopened, and ripe for fizzing.

 _Don’t. Just don’t. You’re a soldier. Be professional and respectful._ 626 tried to remind himself of that and sit still.

It proved impossible after all the backhanded complements and smarmy observations. Taking a quick look to make sure no-one was looking 626 let a brief madness seize him and grabbed the soda, giving it a rapid, vigorous shake. Then, before Forneo and the Councilwoman turned back around, he replaced it. Once their attention had turned back to the table 626 excused himself and tried to hurry out of the room as fast as he could manage to do so while still remaining inconspicuous.

He got all the way to the door before the thing blew.

“AAAAAARGGH!” 626 turned around to see that Forneo’s golden fur had turned a damp brown, the Councilman covered in soda from head to toe and gazing dumbfounded at the mess now occupying almost the entirety of the table.

Shaking with laughter, 626 took off for the hangar. 

- _Hyperspace, 15:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

They were near the end of the trip out to Gapra, and so 626 decided that it would be a good idea to take Sparky up to the ship’s deck and let him see the final approach; from his own experiences, for some reason it always seemed to help those new to space travel acclimate to the fact that they were landing on a completely different planet, and although Sparky did already have a few trips on his belt it was probably a good idea to let him see his new home from above. So 626 dragged his fellow experiment out of his quarters and brought him to the bridge, where they stopped and stood under the dancing lights of hyperspace.

626 looked over at the other experiment, who was watching the display of colors with a look that 626 found rather unfocused. _Sparky’s probably worried about what it’s going to be like at the base,_ he decided.

He decided to tap Sparky on the shoulder. “You holding up alright?”

“Ih. Meega nervous, but meega alright.” Sparky bit his lip. “Pano…” _But…_

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Yuuga ever been here? Gapra – Gapra isa bachoota, right?”

“It’s perfectly safe.” 626 put a paw on Sparky’s shoulder. “The base commander’s a great woman – Gapra was my first posting, and since then we’ve been pretty close. Sure, she can get a bit intense when she’s mad, but that’s mostly just something that comes out when she has to deal with the bureaucracy.”

“Beer-aw-crassy? Gaba ika?” _What’s that?_

“Something that you hopefully won’t run into too much.” 626 slapped the other experiment on the back hard enough to make him stumble forwards a few steps. “I won’t ruin the mood by explaining.”

“Okie taba.” _Okay._ “Oh, and Ritska? Yuuga know Ritska?”

626 waited a moment before answering, trying to figure out the best way to describe the…quirks his friend tended to show from time to time without sending Sparky running to the proverbial hills. “They’re, ah, kind of an acquired taste.”

“Gaba yuuga mean?” Sparky tilted his head.

“Well, to put it shortly, Ritska’s very…excitable about science. And experiments like us. Kid you not, when we first met they spent a good five minutes acting like a giddy fan over the fact that they were next to the famed ‘Experiment 626’.” The memory made him laugh. “But they’re really nice, though – never gave me so much as the tiniest bit of grief over being a technically illegal creation.” 626 gave the side-eye to one of the Ensigns, one who he recalled having made a choice comment or two back during shared academy days. “Which is more than I can say for some.”

“Ritska naga hurt meega, right?”

“Not at all. Well,” 626 amended, “unless your ears hurt after they ask a million questions. Because they will. I assure you that. You know, come to think of it, Ritska’s actually a lot like Yufu, so you’ll get along just fine.”

“Okie taba. Chu Chomba, cousin.” _Thank you, cousin._

Sparky’s ears drooped, and 626 wondered if he was thinking about his creator. _He probably feels lonely without him._ Not wanting to see the other experiment so melancholy. 626 decided to ask him something.

“Now, I have a question for you: why do you keep calling me ‘cousin’?”

Sparky shrugged. “Yuuga experiment, meega experiment. Meega think we’re similar. More like the other than like other people.”

626 thought it over. “So like family, kind of?”

“Ih.Yuuga mind?”

“I…honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never really had anyone that I could call a ‘relative’ before, except maybe my creator, and he was – never mind.”

“Yuuga not have family?”

Did he? “I don’t know that either.” 626 sighed, not sure what to think about all the emotions Sparky’s questions were stirring up. “I guess there are a few people out there that I could say that _I_ think of as family, but I don’t know if they think of me that way.”

“Yuuga asked them?”

“That’s not really something you can just _ask_.”

“Naga? Then… if yuuga have no family, than can meega be family?” Sparky held out a paw.

626 hesitated a brief moment, thinking, and then took it. “You know what? Sure.”

As they shook paws the ship came out of hyperspace above Gapra, filling the bridge windows with the massive, crystalline shapes of Gapra’s three continents. 626 watched Sparky’s mouth rapidly descend towards the floor as the other experiment took in the view, unable to speak.

As the ship descended 626 began to be able to make out the subtle contours indicating the boundaries between different sections of the forests that covered most of the world, and began to look around to see if he could find Whitewood base. About ten minutes later they’d descended far enough that he could just make out the massive central structure, which he pointed out to Sparky.

“See that? That’s where we’re going. Welcome to Gapra, cousin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, politics. So fun to write, especially when you get to write a complete and utter slimeball while still trying to give them at least SOME redeeming factors.  
> As a note, I'm not really intending Foreno to be a rag on any specific politician - he's more just a general pastiche of the archetypical sleazy political entity, and his positions are more those that I would see as those in opposition to the Grand Councilwoman than a reflection of our reality. We're not exactly awash in Experiments like Stitch or Sparky, after all.  
> (Also in looks in personality he's kinda based off Jason from Fate/Grand Order but that's neither here nor there)  
> Also apologies for how much of a plot dominator Aqua winded up being. I'll blame my own failure to pace and divvy up chapters well enough for that, though I will promise that there will be some relevance to that whole mini-arc besides just getting Sparky on the side of good.


	9. Back to Gapra

- _Whitewood Base, Gapra, 16:30 Turo Standard Time_ -

Although the ship was on the ground, and had been for at least twenty minutes by 626’s estimation, neither he nor Sparky had actually exited as of yet – Adon had thought it best that the new arrival get a more private welcome to the planet, and where Sparky went 626 went as well, so instead the two of them sat in their shared cabin and waited. It wasn’t long before the door chime went off and the door opened, letting Ritska and Adon in. 626 stood up and saluted, while Sparky grinned and waved.

Ritska, cheerful as ever, returned the wave before striding over and cheerfully grabbing Sparky’s paw and shaking it.

“Afternoon, 22! Welcome to Gapra!”

“T – taka.” _Thanks_. “But meega like ‘Sparky’ better, if yuuga don’t mind.”

Ritska blushed a bit. “Oh yeah, sorry on that.” They gestured towards 626. “That one’s always just gone by a number, so that’s what I’m used to. But still, I’ll make an effort!” Pausing to clear their throat, Ritska continued. “Anyways, once again welcome to Gapra. I promise you that you won’t be treated any differently than anyone else, although if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a couple questions? Just to get a feel for how your powers work?”

Sparky, whose brain was almost visibly still trying to sort out how to react to the rather excitable being standing across from him, was saved from having to come up with a response when Adon gently placed her hand on Ritska’s shoulder and drew them back.

“Ease up, will ya?” Adon tried and failed to conceal her smile. “Poor kid’s not even technically planetside yet. Wait ‘til after we get him settled in, at least.”

“Now Ritska’s blush covered their entire face. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry about that. Should we head there now?”

“Sure, if it’s alright with Sparky.” She looked over at him, questioning.

Sparky nodded back.

“Good. Now, if you’d lead the way, I’d like to talk with 626 a little.”

Ritska saluted before starting off, explaining to Sparky where they were going as they went.

For some reason, Adon made 626 wait a moment before starting after the two. _That’s odd. Wonder why. There something she doesn’t want Ritska to hear?_

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer. As soon as Ritska and Sparky were a good twenty paces ahead Adon turned to face 626. “So you’re _sure_ that he’s redeemed himself? Didn’t seem it when we pulled him off Earth.”

“He is. I think we just needed to cut him a little slack for a bit.”

“Well, as long as he doesn’t blow up the entire base.” Adon continued forwards in silence for a few steps before shaking her head. “Just hope the rest of the base is as friendly to the kid as we are.”

“Why do you keep calling him that?”

“Hmm?”

“The kid. You’ve already called him that twice.”

“Because he _is_ one?”

“I was newly-made too when I enlisted.” 626 said defensively. “Biological age doesn’t matter with experiments like us.”

Adon stopped long enough to give 626 a deep, searching look. “You were already an adult when Jumba created you. He’s not. Honestly, from those messages you sent me about how he acts and from what I’ve seen, mentally he’s still probably a teenager.” She grunted. “Apparently the council doesn’t give a damn about age if you’re an illegal experiment.”

“He should be fine as long as he stays off the front lines, right? It’s not like Ritska’s making him into a soldier. This isn’t that Aeterna project.”

“Yeah. Thank the Gods I was able to get Rikke to sign off on shutting it down.” Adon uttered a few curses that 626 hadn’t ever heard before, all directed at the former command at Whitewood Base before spitting onto the floor. A passing mechanic gave a start and opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but upon seeing the look on Adon’s face thought better of it and scurried away.

As they began walking across the landing platform, 626 made a few glances around, curious to see how many people were actually doing their jobs as opposed to just standing around and gawking at the new arrival. He was surprised to see that the area was almost deserted, and rather gratified to see that Sparky’s arrival was engendering no more attention amongst those that _were_ present than a gnat flying across the deck would have. _That’s good, at least. He’ll probably feel better if he’s not being hounded by random strangers every second of the day, especially if he’s really a ‘kid’ the way Adon thinks he is._

Truth be told, though, the notion that Sparky _wasn’t_ mentally an adult was one that hadn’t even occurred to 626 before she’d suggested it. Up until now, he’d just assumed that all experiments were like him – more or less adults from the moment of creation, and thus deserving to be treated as such.

Of course, now that he thought about it, Leroy had never been an adult by _any_ stretch of the imagination, and now that he thought about it 626 realized that Leroy was probably mentally even younger than Sparky. Maybe even younger than Lilo.

_Yeesh. And to think that I literally stabbed his eye out. Probably not my best course of action, in hindsight. Aqua was right. I have a LOT to work on when it comes to other experiments._

626’s musings made him remember something. “Say, Adon? May I ask a question?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“All prisoners are given a DNA scan before they’re put in a cell, right?”

“Correct, at least as far as I can remember?”

“And you’re high enough to request one, right? Especially if it’s for study?”

Adon thought about it. “I…think so? I’d have to ask, but theoretically I probably could. Though, if I may ask _you_ a question, what in _space_ does that have to do with anything?”

“You know those two humans that there’s been all the fuss about the past few days? I wanted to see if I could get a look at the DNA of the boy?”

“Any particular reason why?”

“Idle curiosity. Just want to make a comparison to the samples Ritska got after that brawl in the coffee shop.”

***

After ten minutes’ worth of walking and other five minutes in a transport across the base, they came to the quarters where Sparky was going to be staying. 626 had to admit he was jealous: the other experiment wasn’t so much getting ‘quarters’ as ‘an entire studio apartment’, complete with a private bathroom and kitchenette. _And to think that most of the time I’m only one step above regular barracks._

After giving him a quick list of rules Adon had trotted Sparky off to where he was going to be working, leaving Ritska and 626 to occupy the two chairs the apartment had been furnished with. 626 took a minute to squash _that_ particular bit of envy before asking Ritska their thoughts on the new arrival.

“Well, from how we talked he seems nice enough. Still a bit unclear on how rules work, I guess, but what can I say? Most teenagers are.”

“So you think he’s a teen as well, I take it?”

Ritska shrugged. “More or less. He’s certainly not as mature as you are, that’s for sure. Maybe in another year or two? I’ll have to keep tabs on his psychological development. How long are you going to be with him for?”

“Not sure. Probably at least two or three months, maybe? Although I think most of that time I’ll just be doing normal patrols and stuff around the planet.”

“I see.” Ritska studied 626 a moment before speaking again. “Mind if I ask a bit of a personal question? It’s about his name and yours.”

Not sure what they wanted to know, 626 answered in the affirmative.

“Sparky originally went by the name ‘Experiment 221, right?”

626 nodded. “Yeah. I think it had something to do with Yufu’s culture or something.”

“Does 626 mean anything that you know of?”

“Don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m only ‘626’ because Jumba had to perform that many experiments to actually make a living being.”

“I see…” Ritska looked at the floor. “Did you ever think about taking another name? Because no offense, but when you put it like that 626 seems kind of…well…meaningless.”

“Not really. By the time that option even came up I’d already been ‘Experiment 626’ for a few months, and I’d gotten used to it. I guess, and I’ll admit I’m quoting this book that Nani read Lilo as a bedtime story, that nowadays ‘626’ just means _me_.” He sighed, wistful. “Although, I suppose that had I met Lilo earlier in my life I might’ve decided to go by the name I had when I was pretending to be a dog.”

“What’d she call you?”

“Stitch.”

“Stitch, huh?” Ritska rolled it around their tongue. “I have to admit, it suits you.”

“That it does, but I think I’ll keep going by ‘Experiment 626’. Least for now.”

“Fair enough. Be a bit hypocritical of me to lecture someone on their name preferences, I suppose, wouldn’t it?”

_Hm? This is new._ “Huh? Is Ritska not your real name.”

“It is now, but it wasn’t what my parents named me.” They looked at the floor again, and 626 noticed that their hands were tightly gripping the side of the chair. “I’d rather not talk about it though, if that’s alright with you.”

***

- _Planet Greema, 22:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

The work was progressing steadily, if a bit too slowly to be ideal, but he was fine with that. Attempting to construct a viable organism from mere fragments of a genome was hard work, after all.

Still, it was certainly doable, and indeed not just doable but outright _refinable_ to the part that there were actually two separate plans he’d developed. One male, meant to have all the powers of 626 and perhaps even a bit more intelligence, and one female, a creation that traded some strength for a high degree of cunning and the ability to seduce any being with her song.

And an extra creation, a third meant to drive enemies to insanity by replaying any and all sounds the creation had heard, but that was just a bonus. All his hopes were in the two he’d devised from 626’s genome.

_One more month. All I need is just one more month, and the work will be complete. I’ll have my creations, and soon the galaxy will know that Dr. Jumba Jookiba was never the greatest scientist the Federation has ever produced. Neither was that Yufu Tiriol character, although his creation is…laudable. Even if the Federation got their mitts on him._

Looking at his computers and taking in the plans he’d developed for his own experiments, Arn Habbitrale allowed himself a smile. His wait was almost over, and soon his brilliance would be on display for the entire Federation to see. It was just a matter of waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Sparky's arc draws to a close, and as it does some more experiments are about to take the stage, one of whom I will note was unplanned. That's the joy of reader comments, though: sometimes, all it takes is a stray word to get the ball rolling on something, even if you wind up putting your own spin on it later down the line.


	10. Reuben

- _Planet Greema, 0:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

He woke up and immediately smelled something burning. Opening his eyes to see what was on fire, the experiment realized he was in a little case made out of glass. _Okay, then, so where’s the burning smell coming from?_

He looked down at the golden fur covering his pudgy stomach and gave it an exploratory sniff. _Oh. It’s me. I’m burning. GREAT. 10 out of 10 welcome to existence, no way anything could possibly top it._

He looked around and saw a white-furred creature with red eyes staring back at him from atop a floating chair. Not sure what to do, the experiment gave him a wave. “Yo. You don’t have any air fresheners, do ya? I smell like the aftermath of a campfire gone horribly wrong over here.”

The creature frowned. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

The experiment shrugged. “I dunno. Lemme think… You the guy that created me?”

“I am. My name is Dr. Habbitrale, the greatest evil genius scientist in the Federation.”

The experiment resisted the urge to roll his eyes. _So my creator’s an egomaniac? This day’s getting even better._ “And my name is…”

“Creation 1.” Habbitrale gestured towards two other case, each of which contained a pile of materials. “These will be Creations 2 and 3. I will have them ready to go by the end of today, after which we can start planning out your mission.”

“Our mission?” Creation 1 tilted his head. “What’s that?”

Habbitrale’s answering grin was altogether too sinister for Creation 1’s liking. “Oh, you’ll soon find out. Just know that it will etch us all in the history books. Ah, but where are my manners?” Habbitrale pushed a button on the chair, and the case around Creation 1 dissolved. “You were just created, and I imagine you’re rather hungry. Go – get yourself something to eat from the kitchen. And feel free to cause as much damage as you like while you’re in there, I really don’t mind.”

 _Why would I want to break a bunch of things?_ Creation 1 was sorely tempted to ask, but something, some sort of instinct, held him back and instead urged him to get away as fast as possible. So instead he only nodded and started jogging off in the direction Habbitrale indicated.

Habbitrale himself might have set off alarm bells in Creation 1’s head, but the kitchen was an entirely different story; packed to the gills with every sort of food imaginable, Creation 1 spent a good five minutes doing nothing but staring in pure, speechless awe at the delicious treasure trove before shaking his head. _Oh, I am going to ENJOY this. Where to start, where to start…_

A sandwich would just hit the spot, he decided, but what sort of sandwich? _Should I go with a Sub, maybe? Or a Plorgonarian Fluffernutter?_

“You know what, Habbitrale? There are too many choices.” He grumbled. “You’re makin’ this too much work!” Looking around, Creation 1’s eyes landed on a loaf of rye bread. _That’ll do nicely. Especially if I add on a bit of that cheese over there, and that Earth cabbage, and then some beef._

One quick preparation and trip to the grill later, and Creation 1’s sandwich was ready-to-eat. _Ahh, the classic Reuben sandwich of planet Earth. Bon Appetit, Creation 1._

Creation 1 raised the sandwich to his mouth and paused, frowning. _Nope. Not doing it. Not calling myself Creation 1._ Too impersonal, he decided right then and there.

He looked down at his sandwich, trying to think of a name, but was stymied by a brain that simply refused to stop being foggy. Cursing his status as a new creation he tried to keep thinking, but, unable to come up with anything, decided to take solace in sandwich heaven. _My God, this Reuben is good. Hey, I’ve got it! How about I just call myself Reuben?_

By the time Reuben wandered back to where the other two cases were, Habbitrale had succeeded in bringing their contents to life. One of them was a rather odd-looking fellow with orange fur and a pair of large, circular ears that looked almost like speakers, while the other was…

Was…

So beautiful that Reuben’s jaw immediately dropped to the floor. About his height, the experiment was covered in pink fur with a cream-colored v crossing her upper chest. Two antennae draped down elegantly from her head, but the most striking thing about her was, at least for Reuben, her eyes. They were a dark enough purple as to almost be black, and within moments Reuben knew they were the type of eyes one could drown in _very_ easily.

_Wow. Not sure whether I’m terrified of her or in love._

Habbitrale turned and saw the new arrival. “Ah, just in time to greet 2 and 3. I trust you enjoyed a meal, Creation 1?”

The phrase ‘creation 1’ snapped Reuben out of his trance. “Reuben.”

“Hmm? Is that some kind of food, Creation 1?”

“It’s my name. Not gonna go by ‘Creation 1’, bud – I want an actual name, even if it’s, uh, the name of a sandwich.” The experiment that was either sexy or terrifying giggled in her case, causing Reuben’s stomach to do a full-on gymnastics routine.

Habbitrale, by contrast, was less amused. His face immediately darkened into a scowl, and his paws began rapidly fingering the buttons on his chair. “Now listen here. I made you, Creation 1, so you’re going to use the name I give you and -”

“Nope.” Reuben shook his head. “Sorry, Dr. Habbitrale, but I don’t care that you made me. No offense, but naming your experiments ‘Creation 1’ or whatever’s kinda uncreative, isn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of evil genius or something?”

Habbitrale growled, and instead of answering jabbed a yellow button that shot out a blast of electricity towards the experiment, hitting him in the foot. “Do _not_ disrespect me! Your name is Creation 1, and I _am_ an evil genius. Never, _ever_ even so much as _hint_ that I’m anything but!”

He sent out another blast, one that tagged Reuben on the other foot. “Yowch!” Hopping from paw to paw, Reuben tried to put on his best look of contrition. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll go by Creation 1, happy?” _At least, that’s what I’ll go by around YOU._

Satisfied, Habbitrale lifted his paw from the button and reclined back in his chair. “It’s a start. Now, will you be quiet long enough to let me give you the mission?”

The ‘mission’ Habbitrale explained, was aimed at cowing the intergalactic government into obeying his every whim (meaning, at least as far as Reuben could tell, Habbitrale wanted the entire galaxy stroking his ego). They would accomplish this by breaking into a site on the capital planet of Turo called ‘The Vault’, which supposedly held all sorts of deadly weapons.

“It was also the place where I was able to find the material I used to create you three, so there’s some extra poetic justice in sending you all to raid it.”

“Wouldn’t it have made more sense to grab the weapons when you were there anyways? Seems like a bit of a waste to go through all that trouble and only come out with a bit of DNA.”

“Waste…waste…waste…” The orange experiment – creation 3- had the ability to record any sound and play it back, Habbitrale had explained earlier, and so had seemed to have picked up his first sound. Habbitrale glared down at him, making him stop before continuing.

“Too risky. I only got in as easily as I did because of lax security, and trying to grab both the DNA and some weapons would have taken far too long.”

“Yuuga want us to go in immediately?” To his immense joy Reuben had discovered that the pink experiment – creation 2 – possessed the softest, most sugary voice imaginable. “Isa dangerous, though?”

“Great point, toots.” Reuben grinned at Creation 2. “Isn’t it a bit of a gamble to send three experiments less than a day old at a government site?”

“Who said we were starting there?” Habbitrale snapped his fingers impatiently. “Obviously we’re going to start with something a bit easier. Think of it as a training mission.”

He pressed another button on his chair, displaying a map of a large, red building in the middle of a tundra. “This here is a bank repository on the planet Pleist. It is guarded by the Federation, that much is true, but security there is lax.” He chuckled. “Especially lately, thanks to a…friend of ours.”

“Friend?” Creation 2 asked. “Gaba Gee?” _Who?_

“I’ll tell you all eventually.” Habbitrale waved a paw. “For now, just know that they will have made it easy for you to get in.” Another button press, and a small card popped out from a computer nearby Reuben. He grabbed it and began studying it, curious, noticing that the card was covered in a number of lines and silver symbols. “This a magic passport or something?”

“More or less. Our friend was kind enough to give us a few of the clearence codes you might need should the Federation stop you?”

“How do we know they won’t have been changed?”

“They won’t be. At least, not for the next few weeks.”

The entire enterprise smelled fishy to Reuben, but the same instinct that had kept him from speaking up earlier kept him from airing his suspicions.

Oblivious, Habbitrale continued on. “It’s a simple mission – get in, steal as many credits as you three can carry, and get out.” He looked down at Reuben. “I’ll leave the finer points to you.”

“Yuuga not give us a plan?”

“Not for this mission, Creation 2. Think of it as a proving ground. I want to see what you can do and how you think before we move onto the complexities.”

Reuben, Creation 2, and Creation 3 all exchanged a look of uncertainty. _Oh, boy. This isn’t going to go well…_

***

Considering that he was pretty much making them wing it with nothing more than a card containing passcodes of rather dubious value, Reuben was pleasantly surprised to discover that Habbitrale had provided his creations with a souped-up cargo ship as well as a one-person fighter for their mission. Creation 2 had immediately claimed the fighter, and Reuben had raised no objection – as far as he was concerned, the sort of maneuvers a dogfight would entail were too much effort and too risky for his tastes. Let her have the fun; he’d be content just piloting the cargo ship.

 _Especially with a chair as squishy as this one_ , he thought as he plopped down onto the purple leather. _I could sit in this all day._

Allowing himself a smile, Reuben spun around to face his crewmates. “Ya guys ready to blast off?”

Creation 3 nodded, smiling. “Blast off? Blast off?”

“Like your spirit, bud. How about you, hotcakes? Ready to get going.”

Creation 2 rolled her eyes at the nickname. “Ih. Akootah, Creation 1!”

“Reuben. Call me Reuben, please, at least when we’re not around our egotistical putz of a creator.”

Reuben turned around and activated the engine, feeling it purr, and blasted off.

All the while, his stomach simply refused to cease churning with unease. Unease over Habbitrale, over how easy their mission was actually going to be, everything.


	11. Break-In

_-Federation Intergalactic Bank Repository, Pleist, 9:00 Turo Standard Time-_

Spon shivered in the morning wind. This time of year, most days the northern half of Pleist was smothered coast-to-coast in a blizzard, and so far this day was turning out to be no exception – had he not made a point of checking a couple of times, Spon would have highly doubted that he’d actually have been able to see his hand if he waved it directly in front of his face.

That being said, although he could _see_ it well enough, actually _feeling_ it was another matter, as the threadbare gloves he’d been issued were about as useful for keeping the cold out as a piece of wet cardboard would have been.

_This,_ Spon thought to himself, _is pure, unadulterated, bullshit._ While he understood the benefits of building a secure structure in an environment as unpleasant and frigid as Pleist, there was absolutely no excuse for letting any of the soldiers stationed there get stuck with gear as useless as the crap they’d been issued.

He’d raised the point with Captain Rikke back when she’d informed him that he was being transferred. _“Hang on – all due respect, Captain, but isn’t thus stuff a little, uh, thin? It’s gonna be like negative ten there, right?_

_“It’s the best we can provide. Funding’s a little tight now, what with the need to rebuild a ship after the loss of the_ Durgon _over Saiccano, so we have to make due with what we have.”_

_“But –”_

Rikke had cut him off with a wave of the hand and a sigh. _Jofford, you’re on thin enough ground as it is after that insubordination of yours in the Councilwoman’s office. Don’t make it worse for yourself, please.”_

The memory of that conversation still made him feel like hitting something. The meaning had been clear enough: _you’ve been a bad boy, so we’re going to stick you out in the middle of nowhere and hope that frostbite makes you bite your tongue back a little more._ It was ridiculous, so ridiculous, that had Spon not been experiencing it for himself he would have laughed it off as the sort of rumor cadets spread to scare each other.

The door opened behind him, and Spon turned around to see Obrea shuffling his way lethargically out into the cold.

“Morning!” Spon called out. “And how are you this _fine_ morning? Surely, with a day this beautiful, everything’s good?”

“Huh?” Obrea slowly lifted his head. “Oh, Spon. I…I’m fine. Yeah…”

Another thing Spon found ridiculous: why send Obrea, a friggin’ _cold-blooded Raptrian_ , into a frozen wasteland? ‘ _To put an experienced commander in charge of a valuable asset’_ , Rikke had claimed, but if the Captain thought that was a good enough reason she really, _really_ needed to get her head checked out.

But that was a thought for later, when he was off-planet and find someone high enough up in the chain to complain to. In the meantime, all he could do was help Obrea out.

“Are you sure you should even be out here?” He yelled over the wind. “Don’t really think it’s healthy!”

Obrea shrugged, the movement taking far longer than necessary. “Got to. There’s an…important shipment coming in soon. Truth be told I…I should have been out here…earlier, but I just couldn’t seem to – to work up the energy.”

Spon snorted. “Important enough to get yourself killed over?”

“Sacrifice is…something all soldiers risk.”

_Yeah,_ Spon had to force himself to keep from saying, _but not sacrifice over something this STUPID. At least, it shouldn’t be like this._

But then, the whole Armada seemed to be like that lately – more and more incompetence, more and more promising soldiers and officers shunted into positions that they had no business being relegated to, and more and more choices from the Captain that were, at best, questionable.

Not for the first time, Spon found himself wondering why he even bothered with the Armada anymore.

All of a sudden, Obrea’s communicator _winked._ The Commander pulled it out, cleared his throat, and answered in as strong a voice as he could.

“Commander Obrea, Pleist Repository. State your name, rank, and business.”

The voice on the other end answered in a strange, almost tin-sounding voice, like something on repeat. “Federation Cargo Ship! Clearance Code 205-783-9416!”

“Ah, right. I’ll open up the shield for you, but be hasty. It’s cold out there.”

“Is it just me,” Spon asked as Obrea walked over to the outside shield terminal, “or did that sound kinda…weird? Like a recording or something?”

“Hm?” Obrea shrugged. “Maybe. Odds are that the pilot’s speaker just needs fixing. Sometimes that happens.”

“Sure they’re legit?” Spon looked up at the ship now lowering through the blizzard: it sure _looked_ like your average Federation cargo ship, he supposed, but considering how lax security had been in some areas lately he wouldn’t have been surprised if at least a few similar ships had fallen into the hands of some pirates or something.

“They knew the right clearance code. Rikke doesn’t let that go out to just anyone, does she?”

“Well, no, I guess not, but _still_ …” Spon bit his lip as the ship landed, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong.

The ship opened and deployed the ramp, but rather than the sort of burly or at least multi-armed person that normally disembarked Spon was surprised to see a tiny, pink-furred, person. _Hey, is it just me, or does she almost look like 626?_

Spon and Obrea exchanged a look. “Are you here to drop off the credits?” Obrea asked, somewhat lamely.

Rather than answering, the 626-like person simply looked around, smiled, and cleared their throat.

Then, apropos of nothing, they began to sing.

“Akootah, chi meetoh

igata no mootah,

naga, to nala

itume tidooka.”

_Heed me, you are in my power. Henceforth, nothing shall be too cruel or too abominable for you. You cannot escape._

Spon blinked. She – at least, it was probably a she, judging by how high the voice was – was a good singer, even if the lyrics were a bit strange. Not to mention that the tone seemed, strangely, almost _seductive_.

He shook his head. _No time to get enthralled._ “That’s, uh, a nice set of pipes you’ve got there, but the, uh, shipment?” He turned to Obrea. “Still think they’re legit, Commander?”

Obrea didn’t answer, instead staring ahead with a look of complete ecstasy on his face.

“Uh, Commander?” Spon waved his upper pair of hands in front of the Raptrian. “Hellooooo? Turo to Obrea? Everything alright in there?”

Obrea stopped staring, and for half a second Spon thought his weird funk had passed.

At least, for the half a second it took for Obrea’s fist to connect with his face, the impact sending Spon hurtling back into a snowdrift.

It took Spon’s brain a hot second to catch up to what was happening, and by the time it did Obrea was standing over him, plasma cannon in hand and pointed directly at him.

“C-Commander!” The Amuan sputtered out. “What in the blazes are you doing? It’s me, Spon!”

The only answer was the _click_ of the cannon’s safety turning off. _Well THIS is bad._

Sluggish as the Raptrian probably still was in the cold, Spon was pretty sure that the odds of him actually overpowering Obrea and wrestling the gun away were about a million to one. _So then, what do I do?_ It wasn’t like he could snap Obrea out of it, considering he had no idea who the song worked in the first place, nor could he return any fire without earning himself a load of plasma through the stomach.

Spon looked around and saw that he was near the edge of the platform. To the side was a thirty-foot drop; normally, too big of a fall for him to risk it, but considering that it _had_ been snowing a _lot_ lately…

Quickly, Spon grabbed as much snow as he could in his arms and hurled it at Obrea. The Raptrian grunted and stumbled back half a step, causing him to lose focus just long enough for Spon to leap out of the snowdrift and dive off the platform.

He fell, tumbling, watching the world spin and watching Obrea run to the edge of the platform, before he hit the snow below and was enveloped in a world of white.

“Oh, choota!” Reuben heard Creation 2 mutter as he and Creation 3 disembarked.

“Everything alright, hotcakes?” Reuben asked before flinching away from the breeze. “Phew, it’s cold out here! This a planet or a fridge?”

“Meega miss one. Koobaja – he jumped off cliff.” _My mistake._

“And what about this one?” Reuben gestured to the soldier standing at attention next to Creation 2. “He’s on our side, I take it?”

“Ih. Meega naga tooka sabusa.” _Yes. I didn’t have any trouble._ Creation 2’s grin was wicked. “Meega song work perfectly.”

Reuben had to whistle. “Dang, girl, that’s nuts.” _But didn’t she say some guy escaped earlier? Why wasn’t he affected?_ “Think you can do it to everyone here?”

“Ih. Meega only need speaker.”

“Oh, great. Guess this’ll be nice and easy, then. Just the way I like it!” Reuben had to grin as well.

“Like it! Like it!” Creation 3 came into view, blaring the words right back at him. “Reuben, like it! Creation 2, like it!”

Reuben suppressed a shudder. It was weird hearing his own voice played back like that, not to mention the fact that Habbitrale’s voice had randomly showed up just to say ‘Creation 2’. “Okay, can you not, bud? Listening to my voice coming out of your ear-speaker things is _wrong._ ”

The noise immediately stopped, but Creation 3 had an annoyed look on his face as he crossed his arms.

Not wanting to anger the little guy and tick off one of the only people he knew, Reuben decided he could at least make some polite conversation. “Okay, thanks. So, what do you think about this whole shebang? Think it’s really gonna be this easy?”

Still frowning, Creation 3 shook his head before pointing to his ears and making a thumbs down.

“Look, I know I asked ya to ease off the repeat button, but you can still talk, can’t you? I wanna hear your own voice.”

This time Creation 3 made an _X_ across his throat and shook his head again. He then pointed at Reuben’s throat, then back at his own, and then made another thumbs down.

_Hold on a sec. There’s no way that Habbitrale did that._ “You – you _can_ talk, right, kiddo? Habbitrale didn’t forget to give you vocal cords, did he?”

Another shake of the head.

Reuben couldn’t believe it, but at the same time he realized there was a sort of twisted logic in it: if Creation 3 could play back any sound at will, he would have no need for an actual voice. _Now THAT is some a-grade BS right there._

An intermingling sense of anger and pity took hold in Reuben’s stomach. “Right, uh, remind me to get ya a book on sign language then.”

Creation 2 gave an exaggerated cough. “Yuuga done? Good. Meega want to get to work.” Turning at the transfixed soldier, she snapped her fingers. “Hey, yuuga! Yuuga get us into building?”

The soldier nodded. “Of course, mistress. Follow me.” He turned around without another word, leading the three experiments back towards the building’s door. A quick _fwip_ of his keycard later, the door was open and they all stepped inside.

“Who isa leader here?” Creation 2 asked once the door had closed behind them. “Meega want to speak with them.”

“Why, I am, mistress.” The soldier answered, causing the three experiments to exchange looks of gleeful astonishment.

“Call achooga to one room. Meega give them orders.”

“Right away, mistress.” The soldier immediately flicked on his comm and gave orders that everyone present in the bank was to gather in the mess immediately. Then, they were off again.

“Okay,” Reuben whispered to Creation 3 as they walked. “Is it just me, or is that actually really friggin’ creepy?”

Creation 3 looked up at the Creation 2 and then at the soldier following her like a mix of a robot and a lovestruck puppy, and then nodded.

One quick song in the mess later, and the three experiments had managed to get the bank’s entire military attachment on their side.

Well, almost.

Ten outliers, almost entirely women but with one man, had been somehow immune to Creation 2’s power and instead of caving like their fellows had instead drawn their weapons and demand that she cease and surrender to their custody. And for their troubles, all that the ten got were enough plasma shots to kill four of them and stop the last six from resisting as they were dragged into a vault and sealed.

Sitting in the middle of the newfound riches, Reuben had absolutely no idea how to react. Sure, they’d managed to finish their mission without him really having to _do_ anything, which was nice, but at the same time there was something way too disturbing about the ease with which Creation 2 was able to get people to fawn over her like a goddess.

Watching the enthralled soldiers count out the stolen money and hand it to Creation 2 as if they were offerings, Reuben felt a chill go down his back that had absolutely nothing to do with the frigid temperatures outside.

***

“Oh, _God_.” Spon felt his entire body ache as he drifted back into consciousness. “Never gonna do that again. With or without snow.” Pushing himself up out of the drifts, he shuddered. _I can’t believe that Obrea just – TURNED on me like that. All it took was a song._ How did that even work, he wondered? Making a mental note to ask Ritska next time he saw them about whether or not that sort of power had ever evolved before, Spon drew his coat tight against his body and began to walk stiffly forwards.

_I need to get to the hangar. If I get there fast enough, maybe I can warn some people and go for help._ Walking was a challenge, though: Spon was pretty sure that in the fall he’d sprained his right ankle, not to mention that every step made his legs clench up, and between that and the fact that he was now walking into the wind it wound up being a _lengthy_ trek around to the hangar. Climbing the ladder up from the ground was also a challenge, and by the time Spon made it to the top he was seriously considering stealthing his way to the kitchen in search of some hot caf. _Maybe I can talk someone into it._ As he limped towards the figures standing guard at the doors, Spon had to admit that the idea was rather more appealing than it had any right to be.

Then the door opened, and out stepped two more soldiers. Without skipping a beat they both punched the two guards in the chest, sending them crumpling to the floor before shooting them.

Spon immediately froze, the terrified realizing of what that meant hitting him straight on. _Oh, blitznack. She’s got the entire base, doesn’t she._ He looked up and saw that the shields were still off, and briefly considered trying to make a run for it before remembering that he’d have the entire base chasing after him. _Then I’ll just get shot down, and I’d really rather not die here to be honest._

But then, if the shield was still down, perhaps that meant that comms would still work?

Slowly, quietly, Spon unhooked his own communicator and turned it on, checking the signal. Sure enough, one teeny-tiny signal bar stared back at him. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. _Yes!_

Without delay he punched in the first link he could think of: Whitewood Base, back on Gapra. 626, Adon, and the others. They’d be able to help, he was sure of it.

Taking a deep breath, readying himself for the knowledge that he’d be discovered, Spon began to talk.

“This is Private Spon Jofford at the Federation Intergalactic Bank Repository on Pleist. I have an urgent message for anyone who’s listening. The repository is compromised – I repeat, the repository is compromised. They’ve enthralled Commander Obrea and probably everyone else here. I repeat, they’ve enthralled –”

“Drop the communicator!” Spon heard a harsh voice behind him and immediately clicked _send_ before turning and raising all his hands in the air. It was Corporal Iyl, normally one of the friendliest individuals at the base, but there was no hint of kindness as she glared at Spon, paw tight around her own plasma cannon. Spon noticed that she was still wearing the ring that the corporal’s wife had given her at their wedding, and the sight of it sickened him to his stomach.

All the same, Spon knew it was pointless to resist, and allowed Iyl to handcuff him as he tried not to think of how Iyl’s wife would take the news that she had been enthralled by another being.

_626…Somebody…please get here soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, this was going to be a SHORT chapter.  
> It feels good to write for Spon and Obrea again. I've missed them. It's a bit weird, maybe, but nice all the same.   
> Also I will note that I'm playing around a bit with the rules of who Angel's powers work on and who they don't, but it's still the same basic principle if maybe leaning a bit more into the siren-esque nature of things.


	12. Cold

- _Whitewood Base, Gapra, 13:00 Turo standard Time_ -

“I repeat, they’ve enthralled –” And with that Spon’s message cut off, leaving 626 to try and force down the rising feelings of terror and shock rising up his body.

“This real?” He asked Adon, knowing the answer but still hoping against hope that somehow it was fake, that his best friend wasn’t really –

Adon nodded, quashing those hopes faster than they’d risen. “It came from his personal communicator, and I had the voice techs run a scan to double-check the speech – it’s a perfect match to anything we have on file. So it’s either Spon, or a damn good likeness.”

“What does he mean by ‘enthralled’, ma’am?” Adon’s secretary asked. “I thought that mind control wasn’t possible.”

“It hasn’t been, up until now. At least, not unless you have lots and lots of time. Unless there’s some kind of species that’s evolved a way to do it naturally?” Adon turned to Ritska, who shook their head.

“None I’ve ever read about. There are some fungi that’ve been recorded puppeteering their hosts, but those are nowhere near big enough to take control of something as large and complicated as a sentient being.”

“Couldn’t it just be an undiscovered species, then?” The secretary asked, nervously tugging on his collar.

“Maybe…” Adon trailed off in thought. “It’s certainly a distinct possibility we need to consider. In the meantime, we need to figure out who it effects, how it works, and how we can stop it.”

“But how can we tell that? All we’ve got is this video, and the only thing it tells us is that this Jofford guy wasn’t a victim.” The secretary shook out his head. “And for all we know, that could just be because he’d been sleeping when whatever brainwashed everyone else made their move.”

“We can’t get in touch with him again, unfortunately.” Ritska had pulled out their own comm and was pawing through a list of contacts. “He’s offline, at least for me.”

“Same here.” 626 looked at his own, where he noticed that, for whatever reason, Obrea was still active. _Hey – hold on a second…_ Something told 626 that something was there. “Now _that’s_ odd – according to this, Obrea’s comm is still getting signals.”

“Think he’s thrown off the brainwashing, ma’am?”

“I don’t think so.” Adon frowned. “If that was the case, he would’ve sent a message of his own. If I had to guess, I’d say that whoever’s doing this wants everyone she’s controlling to be able to give out an ‘all clear’ if pressed on it.”

_So then,_ 626 thought, _we have on off-comm for someone that wasn’t controlled and an on-one for someone who wasn’t. Hmm…_ A theory had begun to take root in his brain.

He looked up at Adon. “Can you play back the last bit of Spon’s message?”

“Why?” Adon walked over to the display and rewound a bit. “Didn’t see anything else useful…”

“Maybe, but – there!” 626 held up a paw to stop the message. I think I can see someone else in the frame there.”

Ritska squinted at the display. “I’m making out what looks like a pair of talons? Spindly legs? Looks like there’s a thin coating of feathers, but I can’t be sure.” They shrugged. “Not exactly the best quality.”

Adon bent over and took a closer look herself. “Actually, that might be enough. Finn, you can still pull up the repository’s latest deployment, right? I should’ve gotten it.”

“Give me a minute, ma’am.” Finn bent over and started typing. “Let’s see, here… first I think I need to go into…and then to… after that it’s…aha!” He pulled up the list and began scrolling down it. “We’re looking for an avian, right? Looks like there are two at the base.”

“Good. 626, Ritska, look up their names.”

626 did so. Both their comms were still active, and he told Adon. “So, whichever they are, they can still talk. So can we say for sure that brainwashing equals active comm, then?”

“It’s certainly a distinct possibility.” Adon took another look at the two individuals. “You know what? I think it’s this one here. Corporal Iyl. Feathers match up better, from what I can tell.”

“Does this list have any info on her?” Ritska suggested. “Maybe we can draw a connection between her and Obrea.”

“I’ll take a look.” Finn pulled up a short biography, giving Iyl’s rank, homeworld, and next of kin. “Aww, poor woman – says here that Iyl’s got a wife back on Yern. _That’s_ not going to be a fun call to make.”

“Without a doubt.” Adon sighed. “You three, see if you can cross-reference this list with the comm list – I want to know who is and who isn’t a victim, assuming our little theory’s accurate.” Pausing, she took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I need to call the Grand Councilwoman and let her know what’s happening.”

***

In the end, their trawling turned up approximately fifteen individuals they were unable to account for: eleven women, one man, and one robot.

Looking at the profiles, Ritska made a face. “Ugh, god – Iyl’s not the only one of ‘em that’s married. The guy is, and so are three of the girls.”

“Well, regardless, it looks like for whatever reason this brainwashing, whatever it is, almost looks like it’s more effective on men.” 626 gave the list another glance. “Iyl being an outlier, of course. We’d better tell Adon and the Grand Councilwoman.”

Sitting poised in her desk, the Councilwoman let none of the shiver passing down her back show. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Lieutenant. Have you made any progress on identifying what may be the conditions behind whether or not someone is effected?” 

“Right now I’ve got my secretary Finn looking into that with Senior Airman 626 and Specialist Aan.”

“I see. Well, if 626 is on it then with luck we’ll have a breakthrough soon.” Closing her eyes, the Councilwoman pressed her fingers against her forehead. “I just hope we can contain this…whatever it is from spreading. Otherwise we may have another catastrophe on our hands.” She rolled her eyes. “You know, I can already hear Forneo now: ‘the Grand Councilwoman let a military bank fall into enemy hands in less than a day! How can any leader like that be trusted?’ _Honestly_ , as if he could have done any better.” The Councilwoman sighed. “But that’s besides the point. Forgive me for ranting, Lieutenant, but it’s already been a stressful day.”

“Are you talking about Captain Rikke?”

“You know about that?”

Adon shrugged. “Hey, I still have friends on Turo, you know. And the Captain of the Armada up and leaving’s a _pretty_ big deal.”

“That it is. But this, I suppose, is more important at the moment.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a chiming sound. The Councilwoman looked up automatically before realizing that it was coming from Adon’s end of the conversation, and took the opportunity to angrily flick a pen off the table while the Lieutenant’s attention was consumed with the newcomer.

It was 626. “Sorry for barging in, but I think we figured out something important.”

Adon turned to the Councilwoman, waiting for permission.

“Go ahead. The sooner we come to grips with whatever’s causing this, the better.”

626 cleared his throat. “It was something I noticed when looking at the list Ritska and Finn drew up about the effected – for whatever reason, it seems like the brainwashing’s less effective on women. Or, at the very least, they’re more likely to be immune than men are for whatever reason.”

“Interesting. Would it be possible for me to get that list, Lieutenant Adon?” The Councilwoman had a feeling that it would be helpful whenever the other shoe dropped and she was hauled in front of the Council to explain again.

“Certainly, ma’am. Should I wait until you’ve looked it over to take any further action?”

“No. There’s no time for that. Is there any way you could scramble a complement large enough to take back the repository on short notice? One made up entirely of those we are reasonably sure won’t be effected?”

Adon and 626’s jaws both dropped. “I mean, uh, in theory, but… that’s, uh…”

“I think what Adon’s trying to say”, 626 cut in, “is that there are a _lot_ of problems with that.” Holding up his paw, the experiment began to tick off a number of reasons. “There’s the logistical side of it, the need for information, problems regarding forcing a bunch of people that’ve never fought together into action without building cohesion…”

“Not to mention having to sell the idea of a female-only mission to everyone on the base.” Adon groaned. “Because that’s really, _really_ , not going to go over well.”

“They’ll have to deal with it. I’m not going to take any chances with this. I’m sorry for putting you into this permission, Lieutenant, but it’s what must be done.”

“I understand, ma’am.” She flashed a rueful grin. “Just don’t be surprised if soon the military’s HR department gets flooded with complaints.”

“I won’t be. Grand Councilwoman, out.”

The Councilwoman turned off her personal comm and reclined back in her chair before letting out a long, low, and most-unprofessional noise escape her mouth.

_Why, FOR THE LOVE OF SANITY, do all this random, galaxy-threatening, completely unforeseeable messes keep happening?_

The moment communication ended, 626 found himself wanting very much to be as far away from Adon as possible. Instead, hoping to be at least somewhat of a calming influence, he decided to speak with her.

“I’m sorry that everything in the galaxy seems to wind up getting dumped on you.”

“Hmm?” Her hands rapidly clenching and unclenching, the Lieutenant barely even seemed to have heard the apology.

“I mean, there was the whole Aeterna thing, then Jumba attacking with a million gangsters before dragging us all to fight him at an active volcano, and then –”

Adon cut him off. “I know. It is what it is. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, but it’s still my responsibility, and I’ll make do somehow. But how are YOU doing? Can’t be easy knowing someone you care about’s in trouble.”

“Spon’ll make it out somehow. Even if I need to rescue him.” 626 felt himself grin. “Actually, know what? It’d be fun to have that to hold over him.”

626 expected Adon to smile back or at least admonish him for trying to indebt a fellow soldier to him, but instead she only looked away from him and towards the floor. “Right, 626? You…you won’t be going.”

He did a double take. “Hang on, _what?_ Sorry if I’m coming off a bit too casual, but you’ve got to be joking. I know I’m a guy and all, but I’m a Genetic Experiment – if that robot on the list wasn’t effected, I probably won’t be either.”

“We can’t know that. Experiment or not, you’re still a flesh-and-blood person, so the odds are still high that you’d be at risk. And before you say anything like ‘my best friend is in trouble’,” she added as 626 opened his mouth to protest, “save it. You’re not the only one with someone you care about stuck down there.”

It suddenly hit 626 that Adon was shaking, and it caused him to remember that Obrea was down there, too. _All the more reason for me to go. No matter what she says._ And yet, all the same, he found himself giving a stiff nod before awaiting dismissal.

Then, walking down the hallway, he resisted the urge to punch the wall. _This is ridiculous. I can’t just sit here while Spon and Obrea are in trouble and getting treated like puppets by some…thing! Who cares if I’m ‘flesh-and-blood’ or not!_

His pathway through the base, quite unintentionally and without him realizing it, took 626 to a set of large windows overlooking the hangar. He looked down at the crafts parked in the immense chamber, feeling a twinge of anger and jealousy as he wondered which of them were soon to be out flying through space, until finally his eyes rested on the corvette that would likely serve as Adon’s flagship for the mission.

Involuntarily, 626 began to think about the myriad places he could squeeze into aboard it before shaking his head. _Stop it_ , he admonished himself, _you’re a soldier. That’s so far against orders you’d be lucky if you weren’t court-martialed the second they leave orbit and find you._ It would mean the end of his life as a member of the Armada, the end of the only thing he’d known for practically the entirety of his life.

And yet, at the same time, all he could think about were Spon and Obrea. _They’ve always been there for me, haven’t they?_

Clenching his paws, 626 weighed his choices, weighed his life against that of the people he cared about, and then made his decision.

The compartments adjacent to the engines were surprisingly cold, but he imagined that it was by design – that way, if the engine room itself got too hot, the compartments could pump out coolant or draw in the excess heat without themselves reaching a danger zone. They were also tight, but with enough squashing a stretching 626 was able to fit himself in nicely. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, to be sure, but it would keep him hidden and unharmed until they got to the repository, and that was the important thing.

After a few hours, 626 felt the telltale rumble of the ship taking off.

_Spon, Obrea, I’m coming. Even if it means I lose everything, I WILL protect you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lately I've been having a couple of stray thoughts about pairing 626 up with someone. I wonder - is it like borderline heretical to pair him up with someone not named Lilo or Angel?


	13. Arrival

- _Hyperspace, aboard the_ G.A.C. Eltia _, 21:00 Turo Standard Time_ -

626 stretched, feeling stiff, and rubbed his paws together. _Maybe stowing away in a frozen compartment’s not exactly my best idea._ Certainly, it was inconspicuous enough, but he’d really underestimated just how _penetrating_ the cold was. That, or he’d overestimated the protection he’d get from his fur and his – kind of flimsy now that he thought about it – uniform. Either way, 626 had spent the last two hours of the _Eltia_ ’s journey trying so hard to suppress even the tiniest shiver that he was surprised to still have any sanity left. _Maybe I should just take my chances somewhere else… Maybe there’s a closet somewhere that no-one bothers checking…_

He was on the verge of standing up before 626 slapped himself in admonishment. _No. STAY. HERE. Besides, think about where you’re going. Apparently it’s always a blizzard around there, and if Obrea can make it out alive there you can survive this. He’s a kriffing lizard, isn’t he? Not even warm-blooded._

Actually, now that 626 gave it a moment’s thought, that seemed awfully strange to him: why send someone like Obrea, who any idiot would be able to tell was cold-blooded and thus would do absolutely terribly in a land that was always hovering just below zero, to somewhere like the Pleist repository? _Talk about setting up a disaster. Wonder who sent him there?_ Odds are it was probably just some idiot messing up the computer forms – it had happened before, he knew, and supposedly in one case had sent a living plant to a world that got wildfires on a monthly basis.

But, at the same time, there was a tiny, niggling feeling in the back of his mind about the posting…

He let out a sigh. It was a question for another day, preferably one where he wasn’t freezing his butt off in the belly of a ship he wasn’t even supposed to be on. _How much longer, anyways? I want to get out of this stupid icebox._

Suddenly, 626 heard a muffled _clang_ from outside and froze up. _But there’s no reason to come down here mid-flight. Another stowaway? A saboteur from whoever took over the repository?_

Slowly, carefully, he got to his footpaws, stretched to get as much of the stiffness out of his arms as possible, and gently opened the compartment’s door with one set of paws while dropping the other to his plasma cannons.

The space outside was empty, and all quiet safe for the _thrumming_ of the engine, and yet, still, on some level 626 knew he wasn’t alone. So he edged forwards, now with all four cannons out, until he heard the sound of footsteps in the distance. _Huh. Not even trying to be quiet._ They were either arrogant or really stupid, and 626 was hoping for the latter.

“Great, now I really _am_ lost. Stupid ships, why can’t they put up signs like everywhere else in the galaxy?” 626 had gone another twenty paces or so when the other person spoke, and he quickly flattened himself behind a pipe. _Okay, am I hearing things, or does she sound familiar? Like really, really familiar?_

Slowly, still keeping a grip on all four cannons, 626 peered around the corner just long enough to take a quick peek. He saw the other person was small and pink, and, just like the voice, _very_ familiar. So familiar, in fact, that before 626’s brain was able to catch up and remind the rest of him that he was supposed to stay silent at all costs he spoke.

“Melia?”

Melia immediately dropped to the floor and whirled around, hand dropping to her own plasma cannon, before stopping as her jaw dropped in shock. “626? What in _space_ are you doing here?” Her eyes flicked to the plasma cannons. “And, uh, why are you pointing those all at me?”

Embarrassed, 626 pointed the cannons at the floor. “Sorry about that. I heard someone sneaking around down here, and –”

“Let me guess: you thought you’d caught some miscreant sneaking around.” Melia folded her arms and rolled her eyes. “No, you just caught someone who seems to have no idea how to get to the bathroom. Don’t suppose you’d know how to get there, would you?”

“Nope. Never been on a _Zahdaya_ -class ship before, and all I’ve seen if this one is the space right around here.” He blushed. “Well, that and the air vents.”

Melia raised an eyebrow. “Do I take that as an admittance that you’re not supposed to be here?” Before 626 could answer she raised a hand and waved it. “Never mind. Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me. You _do_ realize, though, what being here means?”

“That I’m going to get into a lot of trouble when this is all over, that’s for sure.” 626 swallowed a groan thinking about it. “Gods, I’m probably going to get a million pay docks for this.”

Melia snorted. “ _Pay docks_? Seriously? 626, you’ll be lucky to not get, oh, I don’t know, _drummed out of the armada._ ”

626 froze. _Oh, blitznack._ How in space had he not realized that? He’d directly gone against orders, and not just in a minor way or anything, but doing something that, as far as they knew, had the potentiality of genuinely jeopardizing the mission itself.

“Didn’t think of that, did you?” Melia marched up to him, glaring. “Honestly,” she hissed, “for someone so smart, sometimes I swear you can be such an idiot!”

“Look, I wasn’t just going to stand back and sit tight while Spon and Obrea are in trouble!”

“And what’s going to keep you from getting hit by whatever’s affecting them? Pretty sure you’re a guy, right?”

626 knew that protesting that he was an Experiment wouldn’t be any more persuasive for Melia than it was for Adon, so instead he just looked away and muttered that he’d be fine.

“Well, you’d better hope so.” Melia pulled out her personal comm and paged the bridge. “Lieutenant Adon? Permission to speak with you? _In private?_ ”

“Is something the matter?”

“You could say that.” Melia was glaring daggers at 626. “Let’s just say I found someone extra in the engine room. They’re not a threat, don’t worry about that, but I really think the three of us need to talk it out.”

“O – okay, then. I’ll meet you in my quarters. Adon, out.”

 _Huh,_ a tiny, rebellious part of 626’s brain thought as Melia began to storm away, _Melia being that close felt different. Wonder why._

***

Adon took one look at 626 as he entered her quarters, inhaled, exhaled, and repeated the process. “You know something? This doesn’t surprise me. It really doesn’t. At all. I trust you’re aware that this counts as severe insubordination?”

“I am. Like I said to you back on Gapra, people I care about are in trouble.”

“Do you have any proof that your presence here will make a lick of difference?” She looked 626 square in the face. “Because you really should know by now that acting out of pure emotion like this isn’t exactly something the Armada just brushes aside.”

“Does the fact that I’m one of the people who figured out the whole ‘gender’ effect count?”

Adon thought about it for a second. “No. It does not. Anything else?” She gave him a good two minutes to answer, and not receiving one, sighed. “I thought not. Well then, I hope you’re ready for what’s going to come later.” As Adon spoke, the ship lurched briefly before slowing: they’d dropped out of hyperspace into orbit around Pleis. “I want you to stay on the _Eltia_ during this mission, and when we return to Gapra you will immediately return to your own quarters to await further instruction as to disciplinary action.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now, if you excuse me, I need to get back to the bridge.” Adon turned to leave, but before she could make it far her comm beeped. Frowning, she pulled it out. “Lieutenant Adon speaking.”

“Lieutenant? This is the bridge – we’ve got someone hailing us from the surface.”

Adon looked at 626 and Melia, considering whether to send them away, before giving a tiny shrug. “Patch them through but keep your part of the channel open.”

“Yes, ma’am. Right away.”

“Right then,” Adon muttered, “let’s see who we get.”

“This is Commander Obrea.” 626 immediately felt his ears twitch. _Something’s wrong here… It doesn’t sound right._ “Pleis Repository.”

“This is Lieutenant Adon of the Galactic Armada, Whitewood contingent. We received a distress signal and require a space to land.”

The voice fell silent for far longer than necessary. “No.” It finally replied. “No. Everything good here.”

Melia and 626 looked at each other. “Is it just me,” Melia asked, “or is there kind of a pause between every word.”

“Yeah. I hear it too.” _Almost like flicking through a soundboard._

Adon frowned again. “Obrea, that wasn’t a request. I repeat: we need a space to land and investigate the distress call.”

“No. Everything good here. Thank you, mist – thank you, ma’am, but everything good.”

“Hold on one second, Obrea, I need to confer with the other officers.” Adon winked off the comm and turned to Adon and 626, while also double checking to make sure that the bridge was listening in. “Okay, does anyone have any idea what in blazes this is all about?”

“Melia and I heard what sounded kinda like pauses after all the phrases. Like what you get when you’re playing back a bunch of recordings.”

“We picked that up on our end as well”, the bridge officer replies, “and we’ve been running a speech analysis to check for any indicators of artificiality. Shouldn’t be but half a minute or so, ma’am.” They waited, and then a soft _ding_ played out from the comm. “Ah. Let me see here… hmm… that’s odd.”

“What is it?”

“Well, Lieutenant, it certainly isn’t reading as artificial, but here’s the thing: it’s not reading as coming straight from vocal chords either. There’s a sort of…degradation, it looks like.”

“Meaning?”

“Not sure. Sorry about that – not exactly a physics person here. Still, if I had to choose between ‘recording’ or ‘real person’, I’d go with the latter.”

“So now what?” Melia asked.

“We answer.” Adon thumbed the comm again and was about to speak when the speaker began to emit a series of faint mutterings. Adon held it up to her ear, shook her head, and then passed it down to 626.

It sounded like two people arguing. “So what do we do, toots?” One voice asked in a thick accent. “Don’t think they’re buying it.”

“Naga care.” Another voice answered – a high-pitched female one, by the sound of it. _Naga? Did she just speak in Tantalog?_ It was impossible, right? He needed to hear more.

“You don’t care? Look, princess, they’re right above us with a giant warship? Any idea what that’d do to us? I say we let them land and take a look around, and hopefully your little fan club can make them go away.”

“Naga akatu baba toochotoo.” _They can’t land._

That clinched it. It was a complete sentence, and unmistakably in Tantalog. 626 motioned for a slip of paper and a pen before handing the comm back to Adon. Then, he wrote out a message:

_Someone’s speaking Tantalog._

Adon and Melia’s eyes both widened. _An Experiment?_ Adon mouthed.

 _Maybe,_ 626 wrote, _unless there’s some other civilization out there that still uses it outside academia._

Melia shook her head before mouthing _Leroy?_

_No. Sounds like a girl._

After processing the information, Adon spoke into the comm. “Once again, Commander Obrea, I am requesting that you clear away space for us to land. Because we _will_ be landing one way or another, and I think it is in everyone’s best interest that our landing is as painless as possible. Forgive my bluntness, but I _will_ get to the bottom of the distress call.”

Another pause, one that stretched out into an eternity. “Yes.” The voice that wasn’t really Obrea replied. “Alright. Yes.”

“Planetary shield is opening, Lieutenant.” The bridge said.

“Excellent. Obrea, thank you for –”

“ _INCOMING!_ ” The warning came suddenly from the bridge, and moments later the entire _Eltia_ shook and groaned.

“Bridge, what in _space_ was that?” Adon yelled into the comm. “Did something hit us?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t have believed it, but – _INCOMING AGAIN!_ ”

Another rock, and this time 626 heard a faint sizzling noise coming from below them. “It’s a laser! They’re shooting us down!”

Warning klaxons blaring, all the lights linked out and turned red. Adon sprang into action, switching to an open frequency. “All hands, brace for planetary impact! I repeat, _brace for planetary impact!_ ”

As the _Eltia_ descended into orbit the ship’s movements grew more and more violent, until all three of them were being hurled around. Adon lunged for a falling monitor and knocked it aside before she slammed against the wall, falling unconscious to the floor. Not sure what else to do 626 grabbed Melia and wrapped his body around her, hoping that it would be enough to protect them both, and then with a sound that reminded 626 of the death throes of some great beast the _Eltia crashed_ into the planet.

For a moment, all was silent. Then, Adon’s comm flared to life, and this time it was the female who answered. “Soka, pano yuuga naga stop meega. Naga stop Habbitrale.” Then the comm went silent.

“H-Habbitrale?” Melia asked as she unsteadily got to her feet. “Who’s that?”

“No idea.” _Although, it DOES sound like one I’ve seen somewhere before?_ 626 steadied himself before making sure all his plasma cannons were still in one piece. “Although I do know this: we’d best get everyone we can to battle stations. Sounds like we’ve got a fight on our hands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This getting too melodramatic?


	14. Crash

- _Pleist, 21:45 Turo Standard Time_ -

The crash as the Federation ship slammed into the surface of the planet shook the bank repository hard enough to send Reuben careening out of his chair, dumping both him and his sandwich on the floor. Seeing his creation strewn across the floor, Reuben was more concerned for it than he was for whoever had been on the ship outside. _Aw man, that took me fifteen minutes to make!_ “Hey, Creation 2!” He called over to the other experiment. “Couldn’t you’ve shot them down a little, I dunno, _gentler?_ ”

Creation 2, who was sitting over by one of the turret controls, turned to him and glared. “Itchi ninga naga oogata.” _Your food’s not important._ She pointed at the smoking wreck of the ship outside. “Isa oogata.” _This is important._ “They naga bachoota for us.”

“Think any of ‘em even survived that, though?” Looking closer at the screen made Reuben wince. “That thing looks like it’s about to blow up.”

“We’ll know soon enough, mistress.” Obrea said. “Federation procedure will dictate that they must attempt to engage whatever defenses are still operational.”

Creation 2 nodded. “Ih. Need ooga taka first.” _Yes. We need to stop them first._ “What yuuga suggest?”

“I suggest we send out a team as quick as possible, mistress. If we can take the ship, we can stop any potential resistance and perhaps figure out if any other ships are coming.”

“Please tell me you’re going to lead it.” Reuben didn’t like the smile Creation 2 was giving him one bit.

“Naga. Yuuga lead it, Creation 1.”

“It’s Reuben.” He muttered before throwing his paws in the air. “But fine, I’ll go. No sense arguing and getting my tail singed.”

After taking one last look at his ruined sandwich, Reuben started out of the room. _You know what?_ He realized as he walked, _I actually think I’m kinda starting to hate her._

The hallway was already cooling; the crash had knocked out the _Eltia_ ’s life support system, and between that and all the holes and rips in the ship itself all the warmth was rapidly leaking out into the frigid Pleist air.

“You know what would be kinda nice?” 626 opined as he and Melia walked to the barracks. “If we came across a big electrical fire somewhere. Like an exploding computer terminal or a destroyed fuse box.”

“That’s really not funny.” Melia replied before shivering as they passed a massive crack in the ship’s hull. “Although, actually, know what? I’d like that. A _lot._ These stupid kriffing uniforms are too thin.”

“You said it. I’m freezing, and at least I’ve got a bunch of fur. The sooner we get off this planet, the better.”

“Well, let’s hope there are enough people left for that.” Melia knocked on the door. “Senior Airwoman Melia Lambert speaking. Is anyone alive in there?”

For a moment there was no answer, but then the two of them heard a shaking voice from the other side. “Y-yeah. This is Specialist Orr Hart speaking.”

“What’s the head count? And how many of you can fight?”

“There’s eighty of us in here. Not sure how many can still fight, though…” Orr’s voice trailed off for a little. “Maybe around fifteen?”

“That’s still only half the crew.” 626 noted. “Where’d the other eighty people go?”

“Good question – don’t know of any other designated crash areas on a ship like this.” Melia shook her head. “Well, we can think about that later. Now, we need to figure out how to get the door open.” Melia looked at the door’s emergency open button: the case around it had blackened and was giving off a slight burning smell. “Our power’s shot out here – I’m guessing it’s the same on the other side, Orr?”

“Yep. Completely sealed, and we’ve not had any luck forcing it.”

Melia looked at 626. “Any ideas? I don’t know much about this kind of thing.”

“Don’t need to.” 626 walked up to the door and grabbed the seam in the middle with all four paws. After a few seconds of grunting and straining, he pushed the door’s far enough apart to make a decently sized hole. “is there any way you can get everyone clear of the middle? I’d rather not hit anyone.”

Orr looked around, occasionally pointing at one person or another with a red talon before turning back to 626. “Sure, but it might take a few minutes. Is that alright?”

“Fine by me. Just give me as clear a path as you can.”

Melia raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”

626 smirked back at her. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.”

They waited for everyone inside to move, listening to the grunts and occasional cries of pain as the injured struggled to get out of the way. After what felt like a good hour, Orr came back.

“All clear.”

“Thanks. Now get out of the way yourself.” 626 stood back and looked at the door, trying to decide which of the two lower panels looked less secure. _The one on the left ought to work nicely._ Then, flexing all four of his paws, 626 lowered his body and prepared to spring. He leapt as fast as he could and sprinted towards the panel before punching it with all four paws at once, and was rewarded with both an incredibly painful helping of feedback alongside the scream of the metal ripping off and flying backwards into the barracks. 626 then dived into a roll and pulled his footpaws up unto his mouth, rolling forwards until he’d slowed down enough to stop and stand back up. Dizzily, he turned to Melia and grinned, flashing a thumbs up.

Melia blinked and whistled. “Wow. I mean, I really _should_ know by now how strong you actually are, but still…” Shaking her head, she looked at the mass of injured soldiers huddling off to the side; to the last, every single one of them was gaping at 626 with eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Guess I’m not the only one.”

626 chuckled. “Guess not.” He scanned the room. _Hey, is it just me, or does everyone here look pretty low in rank?_ He saw a bunch of Airwomen and Privates, and a couple Specialists like Orr, but not a single ranked officer. _Don’t think there’s even an Ensign in here._

“Hang on a moment.” Orr interrupted his thoughts. “Aren’t you a guy? I thought this mission was females only for some reason?”

“That’s…uh… not important.” 626 _really_ didn’t feel like getting into his insubordination at the moment. “Anyways, are there any officers in here? I haven’t seen any.”

“I don’t think any of them made it.” An insectoid huddling in the back with a broken wing spoke. “Last I saw they were directing all of us to get to safety first, so they’re probably all still outside since not even all us low-rankers made it in.”

_Where they took the full brunt of the crash_. A sinking feeling settled into the pit of 626’s gut; Adon had been knocked out in the relative safety of her cabin, and if anyone had had the misfortune of being trapped in a larger room or one with a lot of electrical systems…

He pushed the thought aside. _We’ll find out soon enough._ “How many of you did you say can still fight, Orr? 15?”

“17, actually. Why?”

“We need to look for any survivors and see if we can get any of the systems running again.” 626 paused to do a quick calculation in his head. _So there’s 63 injured. Some of them are probably hurt pretty badly, so we ought to leave at least a couple people behind. So out of the 17 that are fit, how about we take eight? An even ten going up front, one entirely able for every seven wounded back in here._ “I need eight of you to come with me and Airwoman Melia. The rest of you, stay and guard the wounded.”

“Hold up,” someone protested, “who put _you_ in charge? I doubt you were even supposed to be here!”

626 glared at the speaker. “Well, then, how many people would _you_ bring? All 17? Then who would look after the injured in here? Let’s say you do that, then someone moves in _just_ the right way to break a bone or cut themselves, and there won’t be anyone in here to take care of them save someone else who’s in a lot of pain. How well’s that going to go, you think? Terribly? Fine, then – leave someone. But what if _that_ someone gets hurt, or if the team that goes up has a problem that takes them away from the ship for a while? Then you’ve got one person for 63 wounded. Alright then – we need to leave some people. But how many? Too few, and we run into the same problem. Too many, and the team that goes up will have even harder of a time than they’re going to have already. This way it’s a pretty even split. Yeah, I know, not ideal, but we just crashed in the middle of an iceball and we’re still missing half the crew. It’s the best we can probably do at the moment.” 626 paused to take a breath before looking around. “Any questions? No? Alright, then. Let’s go see what we find.”

***

The bodies began to appear less than a minute out from the barracks. Some were draped against the wall at angles no spine was ever meant to take, while others lay on the floor below circuit breakers that had clearly undergone violent explosions, while one unlucky soul had been crushed by –

Melia looked away. _No. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know._ Her stomach was already churning hard enough as it was, and she really didn’t need to add to it. Instead, she turned to 626 and looked at him. “Well, guess this solves the mystery of the other half of the crew.”

“Yeah.” 626 looked down the hallway and shook his head. “None of them had a chance, did they?”

A low moan escaped one of the soldiers from the barracks. _A computer tech_ , Melia judged by the insignia on her shirt. _Probably never thought they’d see something like this._ “Oh, no.” The tech sunk to her knees. “Oh, no no no. This is – how – _oh my god_ , there’s blood everywhere!”

Melia stood over her in an instant. “Do you want to go back to the barracks? It’s okay if all of this is too much for you. I can barely take it, myself.”

The soldier thought about it before looking at the corpses. “No. I owe it to everyone here to keep going. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll find a way. Somehow.”

“Just put it at the back of your mind for now.” 626 suggested. “That’s what I do – keep your focus on the mission for now, think about the bad stuff later.”

They got moving again, picking their way around the bodies. Soon they were at the bridge, where 626 held up a paw.

“Everyone, stop for a moment and take a deep breath. Whatever’s in here is going to be nasty.”

The door opened. The first thing that Melia noticed was the icy blast blowing in from the shattered windows, a wind so cold that it was suddenly incredibly painful to breathe.

The second thing she noticed were the bodies draped over the chairs. They were the officers, along with –

Her stomach gave a horrible twinge as she looked at one of the pilots. _Oh, by the goddess, that’s…that’s…_ The world swam in front of her. _She was my roommate back at the academy. We – we used to – she –_

Reaching out blindly for support, Melia felt her hand fall onto 626’s shoulder. Somewhere, distantly, she heard the sounds of retching.

626 barely even felt Melia’s hand on his shoulder as he struggled not to cry. The scene in front of him was one of the most horrid things he’d ever seen, worse even than the fight back at Saiccano, but he needed to stay strong. There would be time for tears later when they were all safe. Right now, he needed to see if there was any life left in the ship.

He walked over to the command station, trying as hard as he could to not look at the broken occupant of the chairs surrounding it, and began attempting to turn on one computer after another. The first three were completely unresponsive, while the fourth winked to life for exactly half a second before the fizzling out and emitting a puff of smoke from under the console. The fifth one lasted a whole two seconds, and when it turned off nothing happened but a clicking sound. _Maybe that means the sixth one is salvageable?_

He never found out. Suddenly, the howl of the wind was joined by a nervous voice coming from outside. “I can see you all up there. Put your hands in the air where I can see ‘em! That goes double for you, mister Experiment!”

626 looked out and felt an unpleasant sensation trickle down his back as he saw what looked to be almost the entire garrison arrayed outside, plasma cannons pointed up at the ten of them on the bridge.

Leading them was a creature he’d never seen before with golden fir and a large, round nose. _That’s another Experiment. Somehow. And I don’t even know what this one can do._

Without any other options, 626 raised his paws in the air alongside everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I promise that the next arc won't be NEARLY as grimdark as this one. I'm thinking an interlude on Hawai'i.


End file.
